OLX is one of the worlds leading online classifieds sites with presence in more than 40 countries where we aim to improve buyers and sellers lives' by bringing them win-win exchanges.

OLX Philippines, once Sulit.com.ph was founded in 2006 as an experiment by its founders RJ and Arianne David to find out which categories were popular for buying and selling online.

Below is a visual history of the website's homepage, starting from when I came onboard as a UI Engineer.

I came onboard Sulit.com.ph in the last quarter of 2009, and my first task was to redesign the website. The image above was the state of the website back then, heavily relying on text links for the SEO juice. The site had a reputation back then because of the high probability of appearing in the first page of search results.

I analyzed and mainly assumed what users wanted through the site's forums and feedback from RJ and Arianne as they had close communication with some of the site's members.

It took quite a while to implement my designs, being the sole designer and front-end developer. My workflow involved going straight into Photoshop with any design ideas which honestly was not the best way to approach design tasks. Revisions took several days to iterate given the high-fidelity output. There was some crude sketching every now and then, but it wasn't really the norm.

Major changes did come out of the designs submitted, one being the greater focus on the search bar. It also controlled most of the branding and look of the site by echoing the brand colors.

This year covered optimizations on the features and designs that were previously implemented. As I gained more insight into the needs of users, the business goals, and from getting to know the site myself, I was able to suggest improvements to user flows aside from just the visual design. Examples of these were optimizing the login flow, better display of VAS (Value-added Services) that users purchased, and suggestions on display advertising placement. 

A noteworthy mention: this UI was featured in the first Sulit.com.ph TV Commercial

Although it's not apparent in the homepage, 2013 was the start of the emphasis in having C2C or consumer-to-consumer trade in our platform. Locations also surfaced after being hidden in a tab, giving users a sense of the items that they could trade locally.

Elements of the second TV campaign were featured in this edition of the homepage, notably the "Ibenta mo na!" tagline which means "Sell it already" in the Filipino dialect.

2013 also marked the year we attended our first UX workshop and formalized our knowledge about making design user-centric

This is the first year of OLX, with the branding still featuring Sulit for recognition of existing users. 

A/B Testing and User testing techniques didn't quite figure largely back then so tests were quite bold. It was a wait-and-see game to change major parts of the website such as focusing on search instead of having users choose between search and categories. 

The visual design also gave way to a flatter look, with the guidance of the OLX Brand Identity

The major theme of this I would say would be a renewed sense in user-centric design. Analytics and Business Intelligence also drove a large part of design decisions, and user feedback played a big role more than ever. Business goals were cascaded through out the company as KPIs or Key Performance Indicators.

Design-wise it was clearer design decisions would be a balance between user feedback and business goals

Towards the end of this year, it looks like this would be the end of the desktop site. With a new responsive mobile site that was also capable of handling desktop tasks, the mobile-first mantra that was in place since 2014 will now be fully realized.

This was also the time that end-to-end UX research techniques were applied to the platform, resulting in a better understanding of buyer's and seller's needs.

In the 7 years that I have been designing for Sulit and OLX, it has always been my goal to cater to our users needs in order for the business' goals to be achieved. I am honored to be a part of a team that also has the same mindset, creating a culture of learning, creativity and creation. 

My design career has progressed throughout my stay in that I firmer grasp of what drives my design decisions. This has led me to the creation of a formal Design Principles document that our Design Team shares in fulfilling the product's requirements. This common language enables us to share the design work not only among designers but also to non-design oriented team mates. When the task and feedback surrounding the design work are less vague, the workflow becomes smoother and taps into opportunities for everyone to explore.