Evan Minh
All work
Product design · Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com homepage

Reworking the most important conversion page on Freelancer.com, so new clients instantly understand what it does and what freelancers can deliver.

Role
Lead product designer
Scope
Brand audit, content strategy, visual and responsive design, A/B testing
Platform
Web and mobile responsive
Outcome
Visual design refresh and an increase in customer acquisition metrics
Freelancer.com homepage design shown in a browser and on a phone
Overview

The first point of contact for 50M+ users

Freelancer.com is the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace, with over 50 million users worldwide. It connects clients and businesses with skilled freelancers, enabling collaboration on a huge range of projects.

The landing page is a key step in that journey. As the first point of contact with the website, it’s the most critical page in the entire product for turning customers into regular users.

The problem

Dated, unclear and underselling the work

Freelancer is an ever-evolving product in an ever-evolving landscape, and its first point of contact with customers needed an update. User testing surfaced three key problems.

What user testing told us
01

Visually dated

The previous page was starting to look dated, and no longer resonated with the Freelancer brand direction.

02

Hard to understand

Content wasn’t especially relevant for clients, and many customers struggled to define what Freelancer is and what it can do for them.

03

Underselling the value

Freelancer’s real value, the work freelancers produce for clients, wasn’t presented in its most appealing light.

The design brief
1

Reflect the brand

Redesign the page to reflect the Freelancer brand, with visual design that makes the content more compelling.

2

Communicate the value

Get Freelancer’s value proposition across to customers successfully and efficiently.

3

Lift conversion

Increase conversion for clients signing up and posting projects.

The previous homepage beside three wireframe iterations of the new page structure, ending in the final dark design
From the previous homepage, through wireframe iterations, to the final design
The challenge

How might we help new visitors understand Freelancer’s value at a glance, and act on it?

The brand

A bridge from marketing to product

The brand plays a key role on this page: it’s the bridge in our users’ journey from marketing to the product. We needed to fully understand where the brand sits, and what perceptions users have at this point in their journey.

A brand audit helped us understand this, and shape the messaging and content needed to keep an emotional connection with users.

Brand audit questions
  1. Archetypes What brand archetypes does Freelancer position itself against?
  2. Personality How does this shape our brand personality and values?
  3. Messaging How does it all show up in the messaging and content on this page?
Brand archetypes grouped into risk taker, connection, structure and growth, beside a brand wheel placing Freelancer between magician and hero
Brand audit: the twelve archetypes, and where Freelancer sits on the brand wheel
Content

Showing the work, not just telling

The copy and content were rewritten to tackle one of the old page’s biggest problems: users struggled to quickly understand the core value proposition.

But the most important content on the page is the freelancers’ work.

“One of the key findings from user testing: users wanted to see what they could get from working with freelancers.”

Before

A block at the bottom

A large block of thumbnails near the bottom of the page. Users found it hard to digest all at once, and often scrolled right past.

After

Woven through the page

Freelancer work appears throughout the whole experience, using a more engaging gallery component to show it in its best light.

The new gallery component showcasing freelancer work
Mobile

All of this needed a more seamless mobile responsive experience.

Four mobile screens of the responsive homepage
Mobile responsive homepage
Key results

A/B tested, and declared a winner

The new homepage was A/B tested to make sure core conversion metrics weren’t disrupted. It was declared the winner, with headline wins in:

Projects posted

More clients posting projects.

Connections

More connections between clients and freelancers.

Sign-ups and bids

More freelancers signing up and bidding on projects.

Final designs
Homepage section: Make it real with Freelancer
Make it real with Freelancer: the value proposition section
Homepage section: Tap into a global talent network
Tap into a global talent network: how it works
Two phones with floating UI cards: freelancer profiles, a project post and a pay securely prompt
Product UI cards used across the page

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