A mobile marketplace designed to help college students buy, sell, rent, and swap items safely and sustainably on campus.
Role
Sole Designer
Timeline
4 weeks · 2025
Client
App Team Carolina
UI/UX Apprenticeship
Tools
Figma · FigJam
User Interviews
Project Overview
PeerMarket is a mobile student marketplace designed to help college students buy, sell, rent, or swap items safely and efficiently on campus. The initiative advances sustainability through secondhand purchasing while directly addressing the trust, safety, and social anxiety students experience when reaching out to sellers.
As the capstone project for an App Team Carolina UI/UX apprenticeship, I managed the full design lifecycle — ideation, research, wireframing, and high-fidelity prototyping in Figma — over four weeks. The project was awarded Most Impactful Real-World Application.
01Problem
Students on college campuses regularly need to buy and sell items — textbooks, furniture, clothes, electronics. But the tools they're using weren't built for them. GroupMe posts get buried, Facebook Marketplace feels unsafe, and Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. Beyond discoverability, deeper friction points emerged around trust and the social cost of reaching out.
"How might we design a campus marketplace that reduces the social and logistical barriers to buying and selling, so that students feel safe, confident, and comfortable throughout the entire experience?"
Quality, pricing, and seller identity are unclear. Students feel uncertain meeting strangers.
Many students avoid posting or reaching out due to the effort and social discomfort of initiating conversation.
Transportation and pickup coordination are major barriers for students without cars.
02Research & Discovery
I interviewed three college students from different campuses to understand their real experiences buying and selling secondhand. Conversations covered what platforms they currently use, what frustrations they encounter, and what would make them more willing to participate in peer-to-peer selling.
I also conducted a competitive analysis across four comparable platforms, mapping their strengths and gaps against student needs. From this, two research-driven personas emerged representing the key user archetypes.
Item quality and overpricing are major concerns. Students can't assess items reliably before meeting a seller.
Many students avoid buying secondhand because reaching out to sellers feels awkward and effortful.
Verified student identity would significantly increase willingness to purchase secondhand from peers.
Transportation is a major limiting factor. Campus-specific pickup locations would unlock participation for many students.
Interview Personas
03Design Process
With research findings in hand, I translated student pain points directly into product decisions — ensuring every feature had a clear rationale grounded in what users actually expressed in interviews.
Synthesized interview data and competitive analysis into core opportunity areas: trust, communication, logistics, and discovery.
Created two personas representing the primary student archetypes — the socially anxious buyer and the busy seller — to ground every design decision in a real user need.
Mapped out the key journeys in FigJam — onboarding with verification, browsing and filtering, the offer flow, and pickup coordination — before moving to pixels.
Designed polished mobile screens in Figma, iterated on each feature with the specific research-backed rationale in mind, and connected flows into an interactive prototype.
Design Personas
04Key Features
Every feature in PeerMarket maps directly back to a pain point surfaced in research. None were added speculatively — each had a student quote behind it.
A three-step email verification flow confirms .edu identity — expanding trust without restricting listings to peak enrollment periods only.
Vertical item cards with horizontal category filters for fast discovery. Like and save functionality keeps browsing low-commitment.
Each listing shows transaction type (sale, rent, or swap), item condition, seller rating, and verification status — reducing misrepresentation concerns.
Automated "Send Offer" messages let sellers accept or decline without small talk. Direct messaging remains available for those who want it.
Users confirm a campus pickup location and payment method before sending an offer — reducing safety concerns and post-deal logistics anxiety.
Purchase history and an active listings view with draft and sold statuses give both buyers and sellers full visibility and control.
05Design Goals
Lower the effort required to post, browse, and complete a transaction so participation feels effortless rather than laborious.
Increase confidence through verification and clear item information without artificially narrowing the pool of available listings.
Design communication flows that let socially anxious students participate fully without being forced into open-ended conversation.
Make secondhand the obvious, convenient default for students — reducing waste and promoting circular consumption on campus.
06Reflection
PeerMarket was Voted 'Most Impactful Real-World Application' in the App Team Carolina apprenticeship — recognized for its research-grounded approach, cohesive visual design, and the depth of thinking behind each interaction. The project demonstrated that designing for underserved emotional needs like social anxiety can be both a human and a product win.
View Prototype