Google Design Challenge

Garage Sale Helper

Prompt: “Preparing your own garage sale is often a daunting task. It’s also difficult for potential buyers to discover your merchandise. Design an experience that makes it easier for sellers to intelligently inventory their goods, and helps bargain hunters find the needle in a haystack.”

Time: This challenge took about 12 hours.

Tools: Good ol’ pen and paper, Sketch, Keynote, Framer, After Effects, Photoshop, and Quicktime.

Result: Mobile experience concept with considerations for web and wearable devices.

My Approach

When it comes to process, I tend to sketch and brainstorm as much as possible with a pen and paper before sitting in front of a screen to generate wireframes or visual design mocks. Adopting a more embodied process through sketching and writing allows me to keep a more holistic perspective when crafting a solution to a problem. To visualize my process, see diagram below.

Research

My research process began by capturing the essense of a garage sale. What makes it so great?

Interviews

I started interviewing friends and family about their experience at garage sales, from both a buyer and seller perspective. Because of the ease of online shopping, there seemed to be a general frustration on both efficiency and visibility. These positive and negative aspects of the experience led me to generate a list of opportunities to consider when defining the digital product.

Some of the main takeaways and opportunities that came out of the interviews included the following:

• Create a digital experience that is centered around community
• (Seller) Provide pricing assistance for items
• (Seller) Reach the right people who would be interested
• (Seller) Encourage videos or live feed to show sale set up
• (Seller) Provide platform to communicate about merging sales to drive more buyers
• (Seller) Provide platform in which sellers can reach out for help, whether that is through finding volunteers, or setting up donation pick-up
• (Buyer) Create opportunity to set items you are looking for or interested in to receive notifications. For less exploratory buyers, this will be a hands-off approach allowing them a more efficient way to buy locally
• (Buyer) Receiving notifications when a sale is near your current location
• (Buyer) Being able to see live video feed of sale happening, or a quick video tour of the set up before the sale/ setting up inventory

Existing Solutions

Another component of research included diving into existing apps centered around local exchange and/or discovery of goods.

One notable mention is CamFind, particularly for their image search recognition similar to Google Goggles. Although this product is not directly within the “local exchange” space, image search or image recognition through video could be a useful platform for discovery.

Another mention is Craigslist. Being known more for their desktop experience, having a chance to dive into their mobile experience was interesting. The UI seemed to lack clarity and focus. Presenting too many options on a page seemed to be confusing and overwhelming rather than offering a sleek, intuitive solution. Inconsistencies with some navigational patterns also became apparent after some exploring.

Establishing Personas

After the research phase, I created archetypal models to would serve as a platform and reference point going forward. Let’s meet Sally, Jeff, and Terra.

The planner: Sally Springer is a 34-year-old nurse living in San Diego, CA. As a mother of three kids, going to garage sales is a way to save money on items she would otherwise pay full price for. She sets aside a time on Sunday evenings to go through a list of items that she needs to purchase, and uses Craigslist search to see if there is a match. If it is a garage sale, she will most likely message the buyer ahead of time to purchase and pick up her items, but if that’s not an option, she will be the first at the sale.

The explorer: Jeff Burrows is a 42-year-old gardener living in Berkeley, CA. As a single dad, he loves to use garage sales as a time to explore and “treasure hunt” with his 6-year-old son, Tyson. He has an extensive vinyl collection and most of those records have come from garage sales. He loves the communal aspect of garage sales. In fact, he holds a potluck at his house every Sunday night, and most of the attendees are friends that he met through attending sales.

The seller: Terra Bergen is a 25-year-old financial consultant living in Detroit, MI. After a recent read of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, she has been adamant about scheduling regular garage sales twice a year in order to clear the clutter and start fresh. For Terra, selling her goods is less about the extra cash, and more about bringing peace of mind.

Brainstorming/Sketching

After establishing personas, I sat down with Sharpies and paper. I began listing general ideas and features, as well as objects within the system. From there, I categorized and grouped items and ideas together. After solidifying a basic structure, I then began to write different personas and sketches for each specific flow.

Overall Concept & Structure

After brainstorming, sketching, and writing, I began to craft a concept for a mobile app called LocalFinds, which helps facilitate the exchange of local goods. From the sketches, I began to solidify features and overall site structure.

Scenarios/Wireframes

Next, I looked at a couple of scenarios for both buyer and seller.

Scenario 1: Image Search (buyer)- Sally Springer walked into CB2 to check out their sale section, and saw a white lamp she loved. She wonders if she could find something cheaper on LocalFinds. She quickly snaps a picture and checks her results.

Scenario 2: New Sale (seller)- Terra decides it is about time again to purge unused items, and start fresh. Her only free weekend to organize a sale is coming up fast. She decides to use LocalFinds to create and promote a sale on July 22.

Scenario 3: Watchlist (buyer)- Sally had specific items she was looking for when creating her account on LocalFinds. After receiving a notification of sales containing category tags matching her preferences, she decides to broaden those alerts and adds a few more categories to her watchlist.

Visual Design Inspiration

Inspiration for the visual design of LocalFinds came from a series of books that I was exposed to as a child, the “I Spy” series.

These books allow the reader to explore different scenes and find items on a page. The act of search and discovery within these books reminds me of hunting through items at a garage sale. I wanted to bring aesthetic elements from the I Spy books into the visual design of LocalFinds.

Visual Design Exploration

Taking the I Spy concept, I began to explore a version of floating imagery which served as a foundation in my visual design exploration.

Other Considerations

There are other possible extensions of the LocalFinds system that would be valuable from both a buyer and seller perspective. A couple of ideas are shown below.

Smart Notifications

One pain point uncovered from research was buyers not being kept up-to-date about sales near them.

A notification system across mobile devices and wearables could be customized to bring alerts if there is a sale near the buyers current location, or if a sale they are attending has a change in hours.

Google Shopping Results

I see plenty of opportunities for features defined in LocalFinds to be integrated into existing Google products. For example, seeing how Google provides a designated horizontal scroll component for shopping results, any items within LocalFinds could appear in that module as well.

Conclusions

Although a mobile app experience was explored in this exercise, I do believe there are other alternatives in layering features of LocalFinds within exsisting Google products such as Google Maps, Google Calendar, and Google Shopping results.

Thank you for your time!

Most of my current work is hidden by NDAs, but you can visit laurenbedal.com to view my resume and portfolio. To view some recent writing, click here.