CASE STUDY — FULL EVIDENCE
Yape Marketplace
Designed a peer-to-peer marketplace experience, optimizing navigation and trust mechanisms through user research and testing.
ROLE
UX Researcher & Product Designer
SCOPE
Research to UI
METHODS
User interviews · Usability testing · IA · Card sorting
PLATFORM
Yape — Latin America's leading fintech app
Applied Principle: Design starts with trust.
THE CONTEXT
When a financial tool becomes a marketplace.
Yape is the most used financial app in Peru, initially designed for peer-to-peer payments. As the platform evolved, it introduced 'Yape Marketplace'—a space where users could buy and sell products directly within the app. However, transitioning from a payment-focused tool to a shopping destination presented significant usability hurdles. Users felt overwhelmed by the new features, and the hierarchy between transactions and browsing was unclear.
THE CHALLENGE
The core challenge was to integrate a seamless shopping experience without losing Yape's primary identity as a fast payment tool. We needed to define a clear information architecture for thousands of products, build trust in the buying process for first-time marketplace users, and ensure that the transition from 'sending money' to 'checking out' felt natural and secure.
MY ROLE
What I was responsible for.
Leading user research to understand trust factors in P2P commerce
Mapping existing user mental models around Yape as a financial tool
Designing the information architecture for the marketplace
Defining navigation patterns optimized for discovery and trust
Prototyping and usability testing key flows
Designing the final UI aligned with Yape's design system
DISCOVERY
Research objectives & methodology.
Objective ↓ / Method →
Understand how users perceived trust in P2P transactions within a financial app context
01
Identify navigation patterns that supported product discovery without disrupting financial workflows
02
Map friction points in existing marketplace mental models and P2P commerce expectations
03
Define what signals built buyer and seller confidence in a P2P commerce environment
04
User Interviews
Trust factors
Usability Testing
Navigation flows
Card Sorting
IA validation
Competitive Analysis
P2P benchmarks
Directly addressed by this method
Not a primary source for this objective
Four objectives, four methods — mapped to show which method answered which question.
USER PROFILES
Understanding who was buying, selling, and deciding.
The Buyer
Users browsing the marketplace for products. They bring a financial mindset from their existing Yape usage — careful, deliberate, trust-dependent. They need visible credibility signals before committing to any transaction.
Key insight: buyers evaluated sellers before products — credibility came first, price second.
The Seller
Users listing products for sale through the platform. They needed a simple, fast listing experience and clear visibility into how their products appeared to potential buyers. Trust signals on their profile directly impacted sales.
Key insight: sellers wanted control over how they were perceived — profile completeness drove buyer confidence.
The Yape Financial User
Existing Yape users who use the app primarily for payments and transfers. They had strong established mental models around Yape as a financial tool — introducing commerce required careful mode differentiation to avoid confusion or distrust.
Key insight: commerce and financial experiences needed clear differentiation — users expected both to coexist without friction
KEY FINDINGS
What the research revealed.
01
Trust signals before transaction
In P2P commerce, credibility signals matter more than product details. Users need to trust who they're buying from before evaluating what they're buying.
02
Mode differentiation is critical
When a financial tool expands into commerce, users need clear visual and experiential separation between both contexts to navigate confidently.
03
Seller perception drives buyer behavior
How sellers present themselves — completeness, responsiveness, consistency — directly influences buyer confidence and purchase decisions.
04
New features must feel native, not bolted on
Users accept new functionality when it feels like a natural extension of what they already trust. Disrupting established flows erodes confidence in the entire product.
05
Friction compounds in mobile P2P flows
On mobile, every unnecessary step between discovery and transaction increases drop-off. Simplicity isn't a preference — it's a retention mechanism.
DESIGN PROCESS
Selected screens & artifacts
DISCLAIMER
This document is a portfolio adaptation created exclusively for professional presentation purposes. It has been restructured and anonymized to protect the confidentiality of the original project. Sensitive business information, participant data, internal metrics, proprietary workflows, and strategic product details have been intentionally omitted or generalized. The purpose of this document is to illustrate the research process, design thinking, and decision-making approach behind the project rather than reproduce the original internal documentation.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The principles that shaped decisions.
○
Trust before transaction
Every interaction in the purchase flow should build confidence before asking for commitment. Users buy from sellers they trust, not from products they like.
◇
Reduce mode-switching friction
Financial and commerce contexts must feel distinct but connected. Mode transitions should be smooth, never disorienting.
◈
Make credibility visible
Trust signals — reviews, response time, profile completeness — should be surfaced proactively, not buried in detail pages.
◎
Connect but differentiate
The marketplace should feel like a natural extension of Yape — not a separate product bolted on. Integration without disruption.
OUTCOMES
What changed for users
Trust
Visible seller credibility signals reduced buyer hesitation — users reported feeling more confident initiating transactions with sellers they hadn't interacted with before.
Navigation
Clear mode differentiation between financial and commerce contexts reduced confusion — users navigated between Yape features without losing orientation.
Discovery
The redesigned product browsing flow improved how users found and evaluated products — reducing the steps between discovery and purchase decision.
Seller Experience
Sellers gained clearer visibility into how their profiles appeared to buyers — profile completeness and trust signals became actionable, not just decorative.
Platform Integration
The marketplace felt like a natural extension of Yape — not a separate product. Users adopted it without disrupting their existing financial workflows.
REFLECTION
What this project taught me.
"Designing within an existing trusted product taught me that new features inherit the trust — or the distrust — of everything around them."
The biggest insight from Yape wasn't about the marketplace itself. It was about context. Users didn't just evaluate the marketplace — they evaluated it through the lens of everything they already knew and felt about Yape as a financial tool. That context shaped every design decision: how we differentiated modes, how we surfaced trust signals, how we integrated payment flows. When you add something new to something people already trust, you're not starting from zero. You're borrowing from — and risking — an existing relationship.