Carvana Product: Marketplace Vehicle Tiles

Redesigning a Crucial Touchpoint in Carvana’s Car Buying Journey

The Marketplace Vehicle Tile is a key element of Carvana’s online car-buying experience, enabling users to browse and evaluate inventory efficiently. Our redesign aimed to address key pain points, improve accessibility, and create a more intuitive interface aligned with Carvana’s design system.

By refining the tile’s layout and interactions, we enhanced functionality and adaptability while ensuring a seamless experience for users. These improvements helped reinforce Carvana’s commitment to innovation and user-centric design.

Project Type

Visual Design, Product Design

Role

Senior Visual Designer, UI/UX

Redesigning the Vehicle Tile

As the foundation of Carvana’s shopping experience, the Marketplace Vehicle Tile required significant enhancements to address user pain points. Challenges like poor content hierarchy, accessibility gaps, and cluttered visuals were identified as key friction points. Our redesign focused on clarity, inclusivity, and functionality, introducing a cleaner layout, improved contrast, and accessibility compliance.

Discovering Opportunities for Improvement

To uncover opportunities for improvement, we reviewed user feedback and analyzed multiple iterations of the tile designs, which had undergone frequent changes over consecutive years. This revealed persistent challenges such as poor scanability, lack of focus on key details, and difficulty navigating tile variations, all of which informed our data-driven design strategy.

Audit and Recommendations

A thorough audit of the existing tiles uncovered inefficiencies, including overcrowded information and inconsistent formatting. Recommendations focused on prioritizing key vehicle details, introducing consistent design patterns, and improving accessibility for users with disabilities.

Exploring Design Concepts

Through sketches and digital mockups, we experimented with different layouts, interactions, and visual styles. Our design explorations emphasized usability, aiming to create a tile that was both functional and visually appealing. Stakeholder feedback was integral in refining these concepts into a unified design.

Finalized Tile Design

The final design features a balanced content hierarchy, cleaner typography, and improved spacing, ensuring that users can easily digest key information. Thoughtful hover states and interactions added depth and functionality, providing users with a dynamic and intuitive browsing experience.

Conditional Variations for User Needs

Recognizing the diverse scenarios users encounter, we designed conditional variations for the tiles, addressing different inventory types, statuses, and financing options. This adaptability ensured that the tiles remained relevant and effective in guiding users through their car-buying journey.

Collaboration with Engineering

To ensure flawless execution, we delivered pixel-perfect design specs and comprehensive interaction documentation to the engineering team. Our close collaboration during development ensured the final product faithfully reflected the intended design while delivering a seamless user experience.

Outcome

The redesigned tiles resulted in a 1% increase in the “Begin Purchase” conversion rate—a significant improvement, especially during the pandemic. Users found the interface more intuitive, enabling them to navigate and evaluate vehicles with ease. The updated tiles remain in use today with minor adjustments, reflecting their enduring value to Carvana’s platform.

Team

Ginny Mueller — Group Project Manager
Ryan Wolter — UX Director
Kenji Shimomura — Senior Director, Visual Design
Franco Johnson — Engineering Team Lead
Dave Williams — Design Systems Lead

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