During my time at Ritchie Bros., I collaborated with a diverse team of five UX designers to enhance the bidding experience for our specialized clientele across multiple platforms. With various bidding methods such as online, in-person, and timed auctions, our focus was on crafting a seamless customer journey regardless of their chosen path.

About the company

One of the major projects I worked on was our online auction interface.

Initial problem

Our company had been wanting to overhaul the design for our online bidding engine because it was not mobile friendly. Many bidders opt for online bidding if they are unable to travel to the auction site or prefer to place bids from the comfort of their own home. This project was happening in the heat of the pandemic, so many customers were moving to online bidding, so it was the perfect opportunity for this project to happen.

Uncovering pain points

Over a series of calls, I worked together with product managers to understand pain points of customers.

We learned that bidders at our auctions tend to multitask and often have their eye on several auction lots at once. Sometimes, lots are being sold in multiple rings, so bidders need to be notified when one of their lots are about to go on the ramp so they can switch to that ring and prepare to place their bids.

Another pain point was bidding on the wrong lot when a lot is presented in a choice group, which occurs when multiple lots are presented at the same time.

Desktop improvements

Desktop devices have much more screen space, so we had more freedom to display more information at the same time. Working within a set of complex requirements, we focused our efforts to improve the clarity of system states in a number of areas:

• Selection of a single lot within a choice group

• Current high bidder

• Lot number visibilty of current lot on the ramp

Optimizing for mobile screens

With a much smaller screen real-estate on mobile devices, it was important to carefully prioritize what information a bidder needs to see at any given time. In each step of the flow, we only show what is necessary in order to better optimize the screen space, ensuring that the customer is certain they are bidding on the correct item.

The re-designed mobile layout offered various improvements to the user experience:

• Ease of navigation between auction lot lists, single lot views

• Ease the current lot on the ramp

• Larger text and increased visibility of lot identification information

Conclusion

Generally, the redesigned interface led to a notable increase in online bidding engagement while concurrently reducing instances of erroneous bids. Further data was not available, since this project was one of my last contributions to the company.