Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Irene Shih

Alibaba just hit a record again, with $25 billion sales in one day (Singles’ Day). Believe-it-or-not facts as follow:

$1.5 billion in transactions within the first 3 minutes (*)
$5 billion in transactions within the first 15 minutes (*)
$18 billion in transactions in 13 hours (*)
97 percent of sales were generated through mobile devices within the first 30 seconds. (*)

If all the above numbers are true, then Alibaba’s apps are probably the most money-making ones in the world, and I am curious about the UX/UI that drives the business.

Here are Alibaba’s three killer mobile apps:

Tmall（天貓）, focusing on B2C

Taobao（淘寶）, focusing on C2C

1688 (Alibaba), focusing on B2B

Do you notice one thing in common in their UX/UI?

You barely see the logo throughout the interactions as you go shopping. That’s quite noticeable and different from Amazon. Secondly, everything looks very generic to me. (Please don’t take me wrong, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Instead, that can be a compliment sometimes.)

That’s why I described Alibaba’s UX/UI as faceless. Maybe I’m mistaken because I’m used to seeing companies recklessly update their logos, brand identity, and apply that throughout the user experience. Uber, Instagram, Netflix, Dropbox, just to name a few. Moreover, if companies don’t do that, they embed their brand identity thoroughly in every single step. Facebook blue, Amazon’s “smile logo” and its fixed top navbar, Mercari’s “logotype in search bar”… etc.

So I’m just curious about the psychology behind Alibaba’s design decisions and here are my assumptions:

Alibaba just doesn’t have competitors, so why bother showing the logo? (No kidding, Jack Ma did say that publicly: “I cannot think of one, and I don’t know one” (*))
Products always go first in the e-commerce world. The UX/UI is just the vehicle to transport it. With that understanding, then it pretty much makes sense that your branding steps back a bit.
Branding/UX/UI is not the point of this business. There has been a rumor in China, saying that Alibaba is going to stop hiring UI Designers or Interaction Designers; instead, they are going to seek for “Cross-Channel Designer.” (*)

Note: I am not sure if there has been a former English translation to “全链路”设计师, but I think “Cross-Channel” conveys the authentic meaning of it. It’s similar to the idea of Service Design, but not entirely the same and therefore I came up with the translation “Cross-Channel.”

Everyone has perspectives, and I’m not saying my assumptions are unarguably correct. Especially when we are talking about the entirely different audience, culture, and economy, which are so distinct from the West. I’m a native Chinese speaker residing in the U.S., so I see myself have the eyes and mindsets across different design standards and preferences from China and the U.S.

What’s your first impression of seeing Alibaba’s app? I’d love to know your thoughts.

Here is Alibaba’s flagship app in the U.S.: AliExpress

P.S. Pardon me saying that — it looks even more “faceless” to me than their three mobile apps in China. I thought I opened a Sketch template at first sight… Well, maybe it has a reason too. Why showing your brand identity when you’re considered as an invasive foreign brand? Hmm, it may be a smart play.

Thank you for reading! Again, I’d love to know your thoughts. Please don’t be shy to tell me your opinions in comments.

The $25 billion business and its “faceless” UI was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The $25 billion business and its “faceless” UI

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