Helping Shoppers Find the Magic Again:
A Navigation-First Etsy iOS Redesign
Reframing discovery, clarity, and accessibility in Etsy’s iOS app
Role
Tools
Project Type
Objectives
Who Is Etsy & Why Redesign It?
Who is using Etsy? What are they looking for?
The Users
Etsy's core mobile users are women between 25 and 40 who shop with purpose, seeking gifts, home items, or something personal, and their decision to buy hinges entirely on trust. When product details are hidden, navigation is confusing, or visuals feel cluttered, that trust breaks down, the sense of something special disappears, and the purchase never happens.
What Research Revealed
User interviews, usability testing, and survey research surfaced two consistent themes that cut across the user base:
Visual overwhelm was a recurring barrier. Users felt the app presented too much at once, making it difficult to focus, evaluate, and feel confident in what they were seeing.
Product uncertainty stopped purchases. When users couldn't quickly access the details they needed (materials, sizing, customization options, seller credibility, shipping, ect.) they didn't buy. Uncertainty became abandonment.
Together, these findings pointed to a clear opportunity: a redesign grounded in navigation clarity and visual focus could directly address the gap between what Etsy promises and what its mobile app delivers.
Goals & Constraints
Defining the Problem Space
Before a single screen was redesigned, an honest audit of Etsy's iOS experience revealed a set of quietly compounding usability problems, cluttered navigation that left users disoriented, critical details like price, shipping, and seller information buried below the fold, and inconsistent typography, color, and visual hierarchy that made it difficult to know what mattered or where to look. These were symptoms of an app that had grown without a cohesive design system to hold it together.
Redesign Goals
With the problem space defined, four goals shaped the direction of the redesign:
Clarify Etsy's value proposition at every touchpoint. The app needed to do more to communicate the handcrafted and personal touch that makes Etsy distinct, rather than looking and feeling like a generic marketplace.
Simplify navigation. Keyword-driven navigation and a cleaner information architecture would reduce friction and help users move through the app with confidence rather than guesswork.
Surface what users need sooner. Pricing, shipping, seller information, and social proof needed to appear earlier in the user journey, before users had to go looking for them.
Modernize the visual system for accessibility and readability. Consistent typography, a refined color system, and a clearer visual hierarchy would improve legibility and make the experience feel intentional and trustworthy.
Constraints
This redesign focused only on iOS and buyer-side flows. Limiting the project to iOS made it possible to use a mobile-first approach that followed platform standards and patterns. Seller features were left out on purpose, so the redesign could go deeper instead of wider.
Etsy's existing brand identity served as a guardrail. The goal was not to reimagine Etsy's brand, but to design an experience worthy of it.
What Research Confirmed
Surveys
Survey research revealed that users frequently shop on other platforms for handmade or niche goods because Etsy's experience feels disjointed enough to push them to other platforms. That's a retention problem with direct business implications.
Usability Testing
Usability testing confirmed this: users didn’t know where to find features, and popular or previously searched content wasn’t easy to access. The lack of image-rich reviews also made it harder for users to trust the platform at key moments. Competition has raised the standard for mobile shopping. For Etsy, meeting that standard isn’t about following trends, but about removing the obstacles that keep shoppers from finding what they want.
Who We Were Designing For
Meet Amelia. She’s 28, married, and works as a marketing manager in Cincinnati, OH. She spends weekends antiquing, plans parties for loved ones, and collects art. When she shops, she isn’t after the fastest or cheapest option. She wants something genuine.
"I'm looking for real people who make high quality products."
Amelia prefers brands with a clear identity, like Anthropologie, Madewell, and Trader Joe’s. She likes places where the selection feels thoughtful and the products seem carefully chosen. She’s the type of shopper Etsy was made for.
Her goal is simple: find unique, personal items and buy directly from the people who make them.
She is just as frustrated by mass-produced products that look handmade and by not knowing who made something, where, or how. On Etsy, this frustration grew because the app made it hard to find the information she needed to feel confident, like the creator’s story, product origin, and quality details. The things that set Etsy apart from Amazon were the hardest to find.
The Insight That Drove the Redesign
The issue wasn’t that Etsy’s products were unappealing. The problem was that the app made them hard to trust. Users arrived with real interest in what Etsy offers, but the interface got in the way of the connection they wanted to make.
The redesign didn’t need to create desire. It just needed to stay out of the way, offering a cleaner, more familiar experience that helped users get oriented quickly and provided the information they needed to make a decision.
Usability testing on the redesigned experience validated this direction. Users responded not with surprise at new features, but with recognition and ease:
"This feels familiar — like I understand how it's going to work."
"I feel like it's easier to understand where I am."
"I hadn't seen this feature before."
That last quote is important. When a user notices a new feature without confusion or frustration, it means the design introduced something new in a natural way. That’s the standard a good redesign should reach.
Design Approach
Navigation: Fewer Tabs, Clearer Paths
The old navigation buried important actions behind too many taps and split related experiences into separate sections. Rebuilding the sitemap around how users actually move through the app meant merging Shop and Explore into a single hub, since the person browsing for inspiration and the person ready to buy are often the same user in the same session. The "You" tab was similarly simplified, replacing a buried menu with clear, visual sections that follow the same logic as the home screen, making the app more consistent and easier to scan throughout.
Before
After
Home Screen: Guiding Users Toward What They Want
Home screen changes aimed to help users find something worth buying faster. Keyword-based quick search prompts were added to the search bar, showing popular categories and items right away. For users like Amelia, who know what they want but may not have the exact words, this guided entry removes the blank-slate feeling that can slow down a session.
Before
After
Product Page: Putting the Right Information First
User research was unambiguous: price, shipping times, and ratings are the top three data points users look for when evaluating a product. The existing layout buried all three. The redesign moved them directly beneath the product image and brought the item description above the fold.
Seller information was also shown earlier and made more noticeable. Shop profiles now include keyword tags like those on the home screen, so users can quickly see what a seller offers and who they are. For users like Amelia, who are frustrated by not knowing who made something or how, this directly addresses what the research found.
Before
After
Updates & Cart: Consistency as a Design Decision
The Updates page was reorganized to include Messages — a pattern consistent with competitor apps and one that users found more familiar in testing. Cards were redesigned to reflect the visual language established elsewhere in the app, and a call-to-action button was added to prompt users to act on active sales or coupons — a small addition with meaningful conversion implications.
The cart was updated in the same way, with a clearer information hierarchy and a layout that matches patterns from earlier in the app. The saved items section now looks more like the product cards users have already seen. This consistency isn’t just about looks—it helps reduce mental effort during an important part of the purchase process.
Before
After
Visual Design: Modern, Familiar, and Built for Accessibility
The visual system was updated to match current social media and e-commerce design trends, using styles that users already know from other platforms. Typography, color, and component design were refined to create a unified, accessible experience that feels natural on iOS and modern, while still keeping Etsy’s warmth and character.
Before
After
Validation Testing
User comments
To validate the changes I made, I provided my prototype to the target demographic and asked the same questions from mky initial tests and recored their responses.
Here’s what people had to say about the redesign:
“This feels familiar like I understand how it's going to work.”
“I feel like it's easier to understand where I am.”
“I hadn't seen this feature before.”
Reflections
A Project That Kept Pulling Me Deeper
I started this project as both a designer and an Etsy user, so I had my own opinions. I didn’t expect those opinions to be replaced so quickly by a more thorough approach. The more I studied the app, the more layers I discovered. What began as a navigation and visual redesign turned into a deeper look at how trust, clarity, and familiarity shape a mobile shopping experience.
That feeling is one of the things I love most about design. This project reminded me to keep following that curiosity.
What's Still on the Table
There’s still more I’d like to do. Micro-interactions, motion design, and some of the app’s less prominent pages were left out of this project on purpose, but I haven’t forgotten about them. Redesigning structure and visual hierarchy is just one part of the process. The next step would be adding the small details that make an interface feel polished and thoughtful.
What This Project Reminded Me
Good enough isn’t the same as working well. Etsy’s app worked; users could find products, add them to the cart, and check out. But there’s a difference between functioning and excelling, and this project reminded me to aim for the higher standard. The most meaningful design happens in the space between an experience that works and one that truly delights. That’s the standard I want to keep reaching for.