Project status: This case study reflects the product discovery, UX exploration, and strategic direction explored while I was at Wix. The project was still in progress when I left the company, so the flows and concepts presented here represent exploratory work rather than a final shipped product.
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Project status: This case study reflects the product discovery, design exploration, and strategic direction of the project during my time at Wix. The project was still in progress when I left the company, so the concepts presented here represent the team's thinking and design direction at that stage rather than a final shipped solution.
A Unified Marketplace for Website Creators
Exploring how Wix could evolve its apps and templates markets into one creator ecosystem, helping creators publish more asset types and users discover them across Wix products.
My Role:
Research
Discovery
Ecosystem Mapping
Product Definition
UX Design
My Role:
Research
Discovery
Ecosystem Mapping
Product Definition
UX Design
THE PROBLEM
Separate Markets, Limited Possibilities
Wix had two separate markets for creator-made assets: the App Market and the Templates Marketplace. Each had its own creator type, publishing flow, review process, business model, and discovery experience. As a result, expanding into new asset types was difficult, while Wix users still had limited access to richer creation options.
Wix App Market
Wix Template Market
OPPORTUNITY & CHALLENGE
Turning Creator Assets into Discoverable Experiences
Professional users wanted new ways to share, monetize, and build reputation around their creations. Wix users needed richer, more flexible assets they could discover and use while creating.
The challenge was to connect both sides through one scalable creator ecosystem - supporting different asset types, publishing flows, business models and discovery experiences
Creator Side
Scaling different asset types
Each asset type had its own flow, review, pricing, and management logic - making the ecosystem hard to scale.
User Side
Expanding design possibilities
Wix users needed to discover and use richer assets across Wix products, directly in their creation flow.
This case study focuses on user discovery: helping Wix users find and use more asset types across Wix products, enabled by a scalable creator ecosystem.
EARLY SIGNALS
Creators Were Already Finding Workarounds
Without a dedicated marketplace flow, creators were already finding their own ways to showcase, distribute, and sell reusable Wix assets.
The behavior existed, the official product experience didn’t.
data insights
Search Data Revealed Demand for Missing Asset Types
Search data showed strong intent for richer asset types, with lower conversion where Wix’s native offering was limited or more complex.
Interactive Widgets
Search, chat, pop-up, map
900K Searches • 56% Conversion
900K Searches
56% Conversion
Social Media
Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok
700K Searches • 50% Conversion
700K Searches
50% Conversion
300K Searches
47% Conversion
Documents & Files
PDF viewer, upload/download
300K Searches • 47% Conversion
Compared to a 68% average conversion from search to add, these categories showed a gap between user intent and available solutions.
user voice
Users Saw Value in Community-Made Assets
Users were open to community-made assets when they solved missing needs or added visual value, but they needed confidence in quality, reliability, and customization before using them.
Need for richer assets
“I might buy a component that is visually appealing or has new functionality.”
Need for missing solutions
“If I’m looking for a specific type of menu and someone has already created it, I can purchase it.”
Need for trust / quality
“It’s more important for a component to be accessible, responsive, and perform well than to just look beautiful.”
Discovery needed to help users understand not only what an asset does, but whether it was relevant, reliable, and worth adding.
KEY INSIGHT
More Assets Only Matter If Users Can Find and Trust Them
Creator workarounds showed that supply already existed. Search data showed that users were actively looking for richer assets. User feedback showed that adoption depended on relevance, quality, and trust.
Asset discovery needed to become contextual, reliable, and connected across Wix products
PRODUCT STRATEGY
A Connected Discovery Layer Across Wix
Instead of treating the marketplace as a standalone destination, we explored how assets could be discovered across Wix editors, Wixel, and other Wix products - directly in the context where users create.
01
Central marketplace
A unified place to browse, search, and explore different asset types.
02
Contextual discovery
Assets appear where they are relevant inside Wix products and creation flows.
03
Quality & trust signals
Trust signals helped users assess asset quality and feel confident before use.
Discovery Model
Two Discovery Paths for Wix Assets
To make assets more accessible, discovery needed to work both as a marketplace browsing experience and as an in-context experience across Wix products.
1. Browse-first discovery
For users who intentionally browse, search, or explore asset types from the marketplace.
2. Context-first discovery
For users who encounter relevant assets while creating, without leaving their workflow.
Key Insights
Combining insights from FullStory, User Voice, and community discussions uncovered four recurring themes that shaped the product strategy and guided the proposed solution.
1
Users expect a table to behave like a spreadsheet/Excel
Evidence: repeated requests for direct cell editing, inline modifications, and Excel-like interactions.
2
The CMS connection creates significant friction for users with simple content needs
Evidence: users struggle to connect content collections and frequently abandon and deletes the table
3
Users expect tables to be fully responsive, in all screen sizes
Evidence: responsive table behavior (table that breaks on mobile) is a recurring issue that appears in feature requests and forum discussions.
4
Want UoU to be able to edit the content and have features like: sort, filter and search
Evidence: multiple threads asking for that throughout the years
Browse-First Discovery
For users who start with exploration or a specific need, the marketplace acts as a central entry point to browse asset types, compare options, and continue to the relevant Wix product.
Exploring Assets from the Marketplace
Discovery Logic
One Marketplace, Multiple Discovery Flows
The marketplace acted as a central entry point, but each asset needed a flexible flow based on its type, context, pricing, review status, and setup requirements.
Asset type
Components, apps, templates, icon sets, libraries, CSS snippets, and more
Entry point
Marketplace, Add Panel, editor search, Wixel, or product-specific surfaces
Business model
Free, paid, subscription, one-time purchase
Trust & setup
Verified status, review process, compatibility, permissions
Instead of one fixed flow, discovery needed to adapt to each asset type and creation context.
Context-First Discovery
Different Assets, Different Entry Points
Marketplace assets could appear across Wix creation surfaces based on the asset type and the user’s current context, allowing users to discover relevant assets without leaving their flow.
Wix Harmony - Add Panel
Marketplace button components appear alongside native Wix buttons, expanding the options available directly in the Add Panel.
Marketplace button components
Wixel - Creation Flow
Users can discover marketplace resume templates while starting a new design in Wixel.
Resume templates from Marketplace
Studio / Harmony - Media Manager
Users can access marketplace animated icons from inside the media flow, alongside existing media sources.
Animated icons from Marketplace
Manage panel
Once the table is connected to a CMS collection, a dedicated “Manage Table” entry point becomes available in the top action bar. This opens a dedicated panel for managing the table structure, allowing users to rename columns and remove fields that are not needed.
The panel provides two key actions:
1. Manage Connections - Opens the CMS panel, allowing users to manage the table’s data connections
2. Manage Content - Opens the connected data collection, where users can view, edit, and manage the table’s content.
FINAL TAKEAWAY
From More Assets to Better Discovery
More assets were not enough. To create real value, discovery had to become contextual, trusted, and connected to the places where Wix users create.
A Focused View into a Broader Initiative
This project was part of a larger strategic initiative to expand Wix’s asset ecosystem, shaped together with Product, Engineering, and leadership stakeholders. Since the initiative was still in exploration when I left Wix, this case study focuses on one specific area within it: asset discovery across Wix products.
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