Barrett-Jackson
Leading the design of Barrett-Jackson’s business-critical software workflows, from vehicle consignment and bidder registration to the logged-in experience that supports high-value transactions.
This engagement was structured from the outset as a multi-phase, long-term transformation of Barrett-Jackson’s core software workflows. The work focused on redesigning how users consign vehicles, register to bid, and manage their participation through authenticated, business-critical experiences.
These workflows sit at the center of Barrett-Jackson’s operations and revenue model. They involve high-value transactions, sensitive data, regulatory considerations, and irreversible user actions. Design needed to function as a system-level discipline, ensuring accuracy, trust, and clarity while reducing friction across complex, multi-step processes used by both first-time and repeat participants.
Scope
Generative & Stakeholder Research
Product & UX Strategy
UX & UI Design
Design System & Interaction Patterns
Brand & Visual Direction
Role & Ownership
I led UX and product design across Barrett-Jackson’s three core software workflows: vehicle consignment, bidder registration, and the logged-in experience used to manage applications, consignments, and purchases. These flows spanned multiple teams with overlapping ownership, requiring coordination across distinct stakeholder groups while maintaining a coherent system-level experience.
I was responsible for end-to-end design leadership, including leading stakeholder workshops, synthesizing research, defining future-state user journeys, and setting the overall design direction. This included mapping existing workflows, identifying breakdowns in speed, clarity, and accuracy, and rethinking how emerging technology could be used to reduce friction in high-stakes, multi-step processes.
Across all three workflows, I owned the UX strategy and system definition, guiding other designers while serving as the primary decision-maker on interaction patterns, form structure, and design standards. I created the foundational design library, aligned teams on a shared direction, and worked through ambiguity where formal requirements were limited, using research synthesis and stakeholder input to drive decisions and secure buy-in.
My accountability extended from early discovery through detailed design and approval, ensuring that complex workflows were redesigned in a way that balanced usability, business needs, and technical feasibility.
The Real Problem
The core challenge was that Barrett-Jackson’s most important users were not casual or tech-forward. The majority of consignors and bidders skewed older, often 65 and above, and were being asked to complete complex, high-stakes workflows through outdated, form-heavy experiences that lacked modern UX structure and safeguards.
The existing consignment and bidder registration forms were rigid and incomplete. They failed to account for key variations and edge cases across different vehicle types, selling scenarios, and user intents. Critical information was missing or unclear, and the overall experience placed unnecessary cognitive and operational burden on users at the exact moment when accuracy and confidence mattered most.
In the logged-in state, there was effectively no meaningful product experience at all. Managing applications, consignments, or purchases relied heavily on manual processes, including downloading PDFs, printing forms, and completing steps offline. This was especially problematic for repeat consignors managing multiple vehicles at once, where the system offered no structured way to track status, progress, or next steps.
Together, these gaps created friction for users, increased operational overhead for the business, and limited the platform’s ability to support high-value, repeat participation at scale.
What Mattered Most
Several non-negotiables shaped how the software workflows had to be redesigned.
Accuracy and completeness were critical. These flows supported high-value, regulated transactions, with different paths depending on whether a user was registering as an individual, business, or dealer. Each path introduced different legal, tax, and payment requirements that the system needed to handle without error or ambiguity.
Speed through the application was equally important. Users needed to move efficiently through complex forms while still providing all required information, particularly repeat participants managing multiple vehicles or registrations.
The workflows also had to account for real-world business rules, including bid limits, payment methods, collateral handling, and varying levels of trust for established or VIP participants. On the consignment side, decisions around shipping, pickup, and state-specific tax implications directly affected how information needed to be captured and validated.
Together, these constraints required the experience to balance flexibility with rigor, ensuring users could move quickly while the system enforced the rules necessary to protect both the business and its participants.
Key Decisions
The most important decisions centered on accuracy and completeness of data intake across all three workflows. The system needed to capture complex, business-critical information related to taxation, purchase structure, and eligibility, none of which had been properly represented in the previous forms.
Rather than optimizing for speed alone, the decision was made to prioritize correctness first. Form flows were designed to surface required information at the right moments, validate inputs, and reflect real business rules before attempting to streamline or accelerate completion.
Because many of these requirements were net new, the workflows were intentionally designed, reviewed with stakeholders, and iterated multiple times. Each round of feedback revealed missing conditions or edge cases that needed to be incorporated into the system, ensuring the final flows aligned with operational realities rather than assumptions.
These decisions established a foundation that balanced usability with rigor, allowing the platform to support complex transactions with confidence.
The Work
The software work focused on redesigning three business-critical workflows that directly support Barrett-Jackson’s operations and revenue: vehicle consignment, bidder registration, and the logged-in experience used to manage participation over time.
Consignment Application
The consignment experience was redesigned from the ground up. Information was intentionally reordered to reflect how consignors think and work, with net-new systems introduced to accelerate data entry and reduce manual effort. This included structured vehicle identification through VIN lookup and clearer handling of complex requirements related to ownership, shipping, and taxation.
What had previously been a static, error-prone form became a guided, system-aware workflow designed to capture accurate information while supporting repeat consignors managing multiple vehicles.
Bidder Registration
Bidder registration was rethought as a high-stakes, compliance-driven workflow rather than a simple sign-up form. The experience accounted for different registration types, identity verification, payment methods, and bid eligibility, with accelerators introduced to reduce friction without sacrificing rigor.
The result was a structured flow that balanced speed with the accuracy required for regulated, high-value transactions.
Logged-In Experience
Prior to this work, there was no meaningful logged-in product experience. Users relied heavily on manual processes, including downloading and completing PDF forms offline.
A net-new authenticated experience was designed to allow users to manage applications, consignments, and purchases in one place. This gave participants visibility into status, next steps, and required actions over time, transforming how repeat users interacted with the platform and reducing reliance on manual, offline workflows.
Outcome
The redesigned software workflows fundamentally changed how Barrett-Jackson supports high-value transactions and repeat participation.
Consignors and bidders gained clearer, more structured experiences that reduced manual effort, improved accuracy, and increased confidence when completing complex applications. Information that was previously fragmented, incomplete, or handled offline became systematized, validated, and easier to manage across multiple submissions.
The introduction of a meaningful logged-in experience shifted participation from one-off form submissions to an ongoing relationship with the platform. Users could track status, understand next steps, and manage multiple consignments or purchases over time, significantly reducing reliance on PDFs and manual processes.
Internally, the business gained a more reliable and scalable foundation for managing customer data, applications, and workflows. Together, these changes enabled Barrett-Jackson to support complex operational requirements while delivering a modern, trustworthy experience aligned with the scale and seriousness of its auctions.
