Taobao’s Mobile App
Taobao is an online marketplace run by the Alibaba Group. Like many other apps from the region, it features a dense and compressed homepage that stores a tonne of information. Although a frequent to the shopping portal, on both the computer and mobile, I still find it difficult to navigate my way through the app.
When the app is first opened, the homepage displays 5 separate segments. I always feel overwhelmed looking at the homepage due to the volume of content on the page. While it’s huge on this blog, imagine if it were compressed to a mobile device. While the main menu remains relatively static, all the other panels on the page are dynamic. This greatly reduces memorability, as opening the app on consecutive days could show vastly different content. I would recommend that the easy access buttons have a larger space on the page, indicating that it has a higher priority. Having a large space also reduces the amount of content that the user is bombarded with. Another option I would consider is having a separate menu to access the main segments in the app.
The panel on the bottom refers to the rewards that users will get if they sign up. Each of these have unique icons that are not featured any where else in the app. The design choice behind this might be to create a call to action across the entire panel, so that users might feel compelled to tap in. A choice I would make would be to make simpler icons that more aptly summarise the text. For example, the bottom left text indicates a free gift, however the icon on the bottom right seems to match the description better. This would be confusing to new users, and make the app harder to navigate.
Scrolling past the sign up rewards, users will be greeted with dynamically generated sections. An issue I had using Taobao in the past was relocating a segment I found in the past. By having the content change each day, it becomes significantly harder to go back to an interesting section. This reduces memorability and efficiency, even for frequent users.
Taobao might have designed it this way through an algorithm to guess the behaviour of their users. They might have also preferred dynamically generated content to build the perception that Taobao is filled with all sorts of goods (it really is). I like that they have a small picture of the goods from that segment. However, after pressing on it, instead of bringing you to the good you might be interested in, the app brings you to the segment. I find this highly misleading because the segment is so varied and vast that the picture on the front does not summarise it well at all.
I suggest having a more representative cover, by removing the misleading photos, and including some icons. Icons associated with the segment can help improve memorability and would make it easier for frequent users to interact efficiently with the app. Because Taobao has so much content, stream lining it and segmenting it into distinct groups to fit different personas is extremely challenging. For content like this, I would prefer being able to “favourite” a whole segment, as opposed to having Taobao guess what I like. This way the app looks the same each day that I open it, having a significant impact on my efficiency and memorability.