First of all, the response in the first few weeks has been pretty impressive. Over 8,000 individuals have logged into The Garden over the past month and the team has received over 1,200 pieces of individual feedback. For example:

“I LOVE the side by side view…and you were so SMART to set it so that I can watch Newly Listed on the Buy It Now at the same time I’m watching Ending soonest on the Auctions! PERFECT! I also like the Quick View Very much!”

“I love the remove/see similar features. They are great for narrowing search results to get exactly what you want. However, I do wish there were ways to narrow down search results even more…”

As a result, there are already some definite changes coming in a few weeks. The following enhancements will roll-out by mid-May based on feedback:

* Save this search functionality will be added.
*Those that don’t like the format information, pricing, and image clustered together will now have the option to ‘spread’ this information back out. There will also be the ability to quickly change image size and add customizations – all in one step.
* We’ve heard consistent feedback that it’s difficult to differentiate between Buy it Now price and Auction price. Formats need to “pop” more to show differentiation better. This will also be addressed in May.

The team is hoping to set up a dedicated blog so they can discuss feedback, enhancements and progress with the community. I’m hoping to help make that happen sooner rather than later.

Cheers,
RBH

Given the opportunity to spend some time with the entire team behind the eBay Garden project, I thought it would be great to capture some candid conversations about their time together, the project they’ve been working on, and what it means for them to be working at eBay. What I got was an incredibly refreshing, candid take on team project work here at eBay. Enjoy!

The eBay Garden team talks about their working environment, the Agile process and the “Negativity Chair”…

The eBay Garden team discuss technical innovation at eBay and what it means to work here…

Cheers!
RBH

“We really wanted to give users a better way to become involved in how we roll things out to the site,” said Josh Ramirez, senior product manager, eBay’s Search Applications. “Because of the way our marketplace is designed, one small site change can have a cascading effect on our buyer and seller experience. The Garden by eBay is a fun way to get the community involved in making decisions that may impact how they buy and sell on eBay.”

The Garden idea stemmed primarily from the search team wanting to solicit user input on a new search experience. Rather than roll it out site-wide or go with the standard A/B testing, the team wanted to partner with users early on in the development process to deliver an experience that best meets the community’s needs. The team believes that allowing eBay members to opt in to experiment with the new experience at this stage of development will help them innovate faster and more efficiently.

When I first heard about the project and asked to cover it for eBay Ink, I was incredibly enthusiastic to learn that I was going to be able to sit down with the entire eBay Garden team to learn more about it. You can meet the team in this video I put together here…

“The new Garden by eBay represents a new collaborative conversation with the eBay community — a chance to listen to their thoughts on upcoming features, and to bring them closer to our own innovation process,” said Christopher Payne, eBay vice president, Search. “By seeding the Garden with streamlined search, we’re asking for the community’s input on improving one of the most important areas of eBay.com.”

One of the new features that the community members will be able to try out is a new “streamlined search” experience intended to make it easier to browse and view search results. This new search feature will let users compare auction and Buy It Now listings side-by-side, quickly refine results based on items returned in a result set and return to the search box without having to scroll up to the header. As Garden participants provide feedback on the experience, the features will grow into an improved experience — before it goes live to eBay.com.

Here, the team talks about why they’re excited about the project and what it means for eBay both internally and externally…

I’ll have more behind-the-scene video conversations with the eBay Garden Team in future posts but for now, please check out the Garden by eBay today at http://pages.ebay.com/garden.

You can also read more about the project at New York Times blog, Bits.

Cheers!
RBH