How Redesigning 58.com’s Web Chat Boosted User Engagement and Conversion

Introduction

Social products have expanded into many internet niches, dividing into communication tools and social platforms. Beyond real‑time chat, they link website information with users to meet public social needs.

Background

MicroChat is an internal instant‑messaging tool that connects users, merchants, and customer service, serving as a key middle‑platform capability for business connections and commercial conversion.

With growing business complexity, users reported an outdated style, inconsistent experiences across devices, low reply rates, and poor extensibility.

Although the city‑level business covers app, mobile, and mini‑program platforms, many users still rely on the web version, making its experience a priority.

Redefinition

58.com is shifting from a traffic‑centric to a service‑centric platform. New technologies increase the number and efficiency of connections between users and merchants, driving transactions. The redesign aims to create a first‑class, fully linked service ecosystem that supports all business lines.

Beyond basic chat, MicroChat is redefined as a lightweight tool and a full‑link service ecosystem that offers standardized, highly reusable, quickly integrable, and extensible capabilities for various business needs.

Design Goals

To align the product with user expectations and maximize business satisfaction, the PC version redesign set the following objectives:

Business level: Increase chat connection rates and drive commercial conversion.

User level: Enhance usage experience and communication efficiency.

Design level: Improve perceived quality, inclusiveness, and extensibility of MicroChat.

Design Implementation

The design process began with problem insight and multi‑party demand analysis, followed by goal definition, decomposition, and data‑driven iteration planning.

Problem areas of the old version were identified in three layers:

Visual layer: Outdated style, coarse icons, excessive distracting elements.

Interaction layer: Unclear information architecture and inefficient information retrieval.

Product layer: Limited functionality, poor usability, and lack of memorable features.

Key Design Actions

Visual language upgrade: Retain existing graphics while deepening the brand color to reinforce efficiency and tool‑like characteristics, and reuse graphic elements in icon design for stronger brand recall.

Information structure optimization: Restructure hierarchy, reduce visual noise, emphasize key content, fix the notification module, and compress post and input areas to increase message viewing space.

Component‑based design: Create reusable card components with consistent visual hierarchy, supporting file thumbnails, and a five‑region card layout (title, secondary info, price, image, tags) to ensure uniformity and extensibility.

Customizable layout: Introduce an optional third column on the web side, allowing two‑ or three‑column displays to meet diverse business scenarios and provide an immersive experience.

Data Summary

After launch, the reply‑read ratio increased by 3.95%, indicating a higher link‑establishment rate compared with the previous one‑way sending model.

Conclusion

The PC‑side MicroChat redesign, driven by the design team, leveraged experiential insights to create business value, maximized design impact across the middle‑platform workflow, and demonstrated the power of thoughtful UX redesign.