Crafting the Buy Nothing marketplace
A ground-up redesign of the mobile and web app for a gift economy where everything is free.
Overview
The Buy Nothing Project is a gift economy where neighbors give, ask for, and share things for free. I led a ground-up redesign of the Buy Nothing app on mobile and web, recreating the core gifting experience, adding private communities, and revamping the subscription plan with new features.
Problem
The Buy Nothing app had a loyal community, but the experience felt outdated and unintuitive to use. Despite steady new member sign-ups and millions of members in Buy Nothing Facebook groups looking for a home off Facebook, the user experience of the app was not keeping new users engaged. The organization also needed more subscription revenue to stay sustainable. If the baseline free experience was not delivering, getting folks to pay would be a bigger challenge. On top of technical challenges and messy underlying architecture, we decided to start fresh with a new web and mobile app.
My approach
I approached the Buy Nothing app as part marketplace, part social network. The app is only as useful as the interactions leading to complete exchanges, which means users must be able to easily post, discover, and connect. First I built a new design system as a foundation, and then identified and prioritized all the flows in the old app. I chose to focus on the most critical new and existing ones first, like overhauling the core post architecture and streamlining the gifting flow. Other features could be migrated to the new platform with relative parity for the short term. From there we continued to ship iterations each week.
Process
- Understanding members. I started by auditing the old app for the biggest pain points, and researching what brings people to Buy Nothing, whether that’s decluttering, keeping things out of landfills, helping neighbors, or finding something they need. I worked on identifying the top areas that would be critical for our success — the landing experience, posting to gifting process and private communities.
- Designing and leading the work. I redesigned the app’s underlying architecture for users and post types, and took on the most complex new features myself while dividing foundational work across the design team, like messages, search, and more.
- Shipping and learning. We launched two major releases, with weekly iterations ever since. I use Claude Code to catch design system issues, build AI prototypes, and open pull requests for engineering to review. We also implemented RevenueCat so we can test subscription messaging quickly without needing engineering support.
Outcomes & lessons
The new app is working: our community keeps growing, and new members are posting more than ever. There are so many lessons learned from this massive undertaking. With the advances in AI since beginning this project, I’d have started with a leaner, AI-first design system that grows with the product, and gotten into Claude Code sooner!
Overview
The Buy Nothing Project is a gift economy where neighbors give, ask for, and share things for free. I led a ground-up redesign of the app on mobile and web.
Highlights
- I audited the old app and prioritized the most critical flows, from the core post architecture to gifting.
- I built a new design system and AI-assisted design practices as the foundation for mobile and web.
- I own strategy and design for new features, like private communities, search alerts, impact dashboards, and the subscription plan.
- I prototype with Claude Code and open pull requests for engineering, so we can ship every week.
Outcome
Our community keeps growing, and A/B testing the new-member flow increased first-day posting by 29%.
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