In 2014, Sulit.com.ph rebranded to OLX Philippines. Though there was a large visible change in terms of brand (things such as our logo), the UI received very little in terms of a redesign. This was done deliberately to help the audience transition from Sulit to OLX.

Fast forward two years, OLX is now the dominant player in local classified ads. It is now aggressively expanding it’s mobile applications to wider audiences and pushing for fast, easy, win-win exchanges. Though we’ve had multiple innovations in terms of features, our design language was in the same state as it was a few years before. We we’re still thinking very web-first and our apps, though powerful, we’re not given full attention. Add to this, there was a considerable disjoint between the design languages of the mobile and web interfaces. On the practical side because we didn't have a common design language, file screens took quite a while to finish.

Something needed to be done to not just help our users view OLX in a different light but to help our design team design faster and easier.

Creating a Common Design Philosophy.

Though we only had three designers working on the digital products of OLX, it was still pretty important that our priorities we’re aligned when it came to design. We took some time off in the morning to huddle-up so we could get our ideas in order. Throughout the day we needed to figure out what we found was important to think about when we designed solutions for our users.

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How we did this was as we went along with our design work we kept a notebook by our side and wrote down every design decision we made and why we made that decision. By the end of the day the design team got back together and talked about our design principles.

All three of us had always had some sort of design principle that we worked with but because we never really shared them or wrote them down it often lead to a disjoint in our product’s UI. It also made it harder to defend our design decisions to our stake holders because these we’re all stuck in our brains. Writing them down was a great excercise in contextualizing how we thought about design.

A common pattern slowly emerged as we picked at each theme and saw which ones were redundant and which ones were more important.

OLX Philippines Design Philosophy

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Beauty

No one walks out of a restaurant saying “hey the food is edible” similarly it isn’t enough that we design products that are just usable. We should reward users by giving them pleasurable and amazing experiences that doesn’t just help them achieve their goals but make them happy as well.

Context

Every solution should be based on the users experience and validated through the users experience. We try as much as we can to keep our assumptions low and design for the user’s context.

Clarity

All design comes from a purpose, an intent. This intent must come through and be communicated efficiently and clearly. There should be as little room for ambiguity as possible. Users should be easily able to understand what they need to do and should be able to understand information we give them with the least amount of effort.

From the Bottom Up