Bid garage

Modernizing the classic
car auction.

Bid Garage is a digital auction system and community marketplace connecting car enthusiasts, sellers and bidders — a place to buy and sell the vehicles they won’t find anywhere else.

role

Product Design, UX, UI, Visual Identity

Agency

Navigate Group

Team

Creative Director - Cassie Scowcroft
Account Director - Peter Palarchio

desktop computer showing homepage

The Objective

Our client came to us looking to build a sleek real-time digital car auction — from brand to name to product. Although there were a number of other players already in the online car auction market, no one was specializing in classic or vintage cars, a huge market for collectors.

desktop computer showing the homepage of the BidGarage website

User research

During customer journey mapping we identified two primary user groups — sellers and buyers. After we conducted interviews with both groups, we discovered a few common motivations and pain points that could help inform our design decisions. Users on both sides were looking for a more personalized user experience, a robust and evolving vehicle inventory, and an online community to stay engaged with other collectors.

The Goals

Create a personalized user experience

Make adding inventory as easy as possible 

Build a trusted community hub

A bespoke User Experience

Extensive (but simple) customizable profile settings allow the user to self-select preferences —  car make and model, topics of interest etc. to control the content they interact with, creating a unique experience for each user.

An easy way to add inventory

To simplify the submit a vehicle onboarding we built in nested steps to reduce user drop rates, clear action buttons that allow users to navigate back and forth, and progress indication affordance. We also included an anchored user support link directing users to the FAQ or a support form pop-up.

A Community Marketplace

For users to connect with fellow drivers, stay engaged with their classic car community, and to help with SEO, we built a robust moderated blog.

user Testing

To increase empathy, and to discover possible issues with the user journey, we set up remote testing with key demographics. Through this we discovered insights around CTA placement and accessibility - most notably that the original CTA colour and placement was difficult for our users to locate (who were primarily in a 45-70 age demographic). We revised the design to increase the size and contrast of the primary CTA.

screenshots of user testing resultsscreenshot of user testing results

the brand

The Bid Garage identity uses elegant, bespoke typography, a rich palette based on classic car interiors, and intimate, detail focused photography — creating a crafted masculinity that has versatility across both print and digital.

bus stop ad showing a car and caption "give yourself the green light"light brown business card
screens showing pages of the BidGarage websitepages from the BidGarage brand guidelines

More work

ia/UX/UI

westmount wealth

UX/UI

KFC