Redesigning the favorites section at mobile.de

Overview

mobile.de is Germany's largest online vehicle marketplace. Despite the high intent of users saving vehicles to the Car Park (favorites), only around 20% contacted sellers. After several incremental optimizations, we saw an opportunity to rethink the experience more fundamentally.

I initiated the redesign and led the end-to-end UX, from discovery and research through experimentation, concept testing, and rollout across web and iOS.

Role & team

Product Designer leading end-to-end UX, collaborating with Product, Engineering and Data.

Timeline

May 2023 - Feb 2024



Identifying the opportunity

Funnel analysis showed that users who saved vehicles were 4–8× more likely to contact sellers, yet only around 20% of Car Park users ultimately made contact. I identified this as an opportunity to improve a high-intent part of the journey and aligned with Product on a broader redesign.

 



What users needed

Exploratory research and usability testing showed that users primarily relied on the Car Park to save, compare, and contact sellers, while revealing friction in scanning and comparing saved vehicles.

 


 
 

Ideation

I facilitated ideation with the team and prioritized ideas based on expected impact and effort. Some became quick experiments, while others informed the broader redesign.

 
 
 


Small experiments along the way

Before the full redesign, we tested smaller changes on the Car Park individually to understand their impact. Here are some examples:

  • Primary CTA order change from left to right on mobile web: Increased contact rate by 10%, so we kept the CTA on the right in the redesign.

  • Opening saved vehicle page in a new tab on desktop: Increased contact rate significantly by 4% so we kept this behaviour in the redesign.

  • Reducing number of technical specs from 8 to 4: Had no negative impact, we maintained this change in the redesign.


Creating a vision

To define a vision for the Car Park, we started with a core question: What should the primary role of the Car Park be?

  • List: A compact overview focused on helping users quickly scan, compare, and navigate to vehicle detail pages.

  • Grid (Listing): A richer visual overview with larger images and additional seller information.

 


Concept testing

We tested List and Grid/Card concepts with desktop and iOS users. Preferences differed by platform:

 

Desktop Insights

  • Users preferred the Grid layout on desktop.

  • Larger images and additional seller information reduced the need to open the Vehicle Info Page.

  • The layout also felt more visually engaging and emotionally appealing.

iOS Insights

  • Users preferred the List layout on mobile.

  • Seeing more vehicles in the viewport made comparison easier.

  • Reduced scrolling improved quick scanning and decision-making.

 


Redesign experiment

We combined research insights, previous A/B test learnings, and internal explorations into a broader redesign experiment for Car Park.


Experiment Goal

Determine whether larger images and more seller information would improve engagement and seller contact rates.

 
 


Variants

  • Control: Existing Car Park experience

  • Variant A - List: More vehicles visible with compact information density

  • Variant B - Card: Larger images and more seller information

 
 

The List version drove a 2% uplift in comparisons
and a 3% uplift in users contacting sellers.

 



While the Card view provided larger images and more seller information, the compact List layout enabled faster scanning and easier comparison across multiple vehicles.

 



Iteration: Allowing users to switch between views

With the List version winning, we killed the old Car Park and planned its rollout. Although List won the experiment, Grid remained well received in research, particularly on desktop. Rather than removing it, we introduced a view switch and tested which layout should be the default.

 
 



A one-time popover introduced the new List/Grid switch.

 
 

The List view as the default outperformed the Grid view with
a 6% uplift in users contacting sellers and a 4% uplift in engagement.



Extending the redesign to iOS

We then brought the redesign to iOS, testing how different layouts impacted comparison and seller contact behavior on mobile.


Variants

  • Control: Existing Car Park experience

  • Variant A — List: Higher information density with more vehicles visible in the viewport

  • Variant B — Card: Larger imagery and more seller information

 
 





Key Insights

Both variations gave us significant uplifts compared to production / control Car Park. The winner was the List version.

The results validated insights from the earlier concept tests: users preferred seeing more vehicles in the viewport over larger images with fewer visible listings.

The List layout reduced scrolling and made scanning and comparison easier, so we rolled it out on iOS.


 
 

List as the default increased seller contacts by 3.9%,
engagement by 9%, and total Car Park contacts by 60%.



From redesign to a new baseline

  • We’re currently implementing the winner variant from the iOS experiment on Android, to keep consistency across the platforms.

  • We established a new base level with the redesigned Car Park, which we’ll optimise further with upcoming research insights.

 
 

© Esin Ozcan 2026