Hope Farmers Market – Dan OHalloran Design Portfolio

Redesigning a Central Austin Farmers Market

The Challenge

The market had seen a drastic decrease in attendance and a dip in vendor sales. Market organizers needed help in understanding the cause of these issues.

My Contributions

My teammates and I were equally involved in design research, synthesis and development of solutions for the client. I managed client relations and embedded myself in the market.

Our Solution

Our team came to a set of three viable design recommendations based in our research and synthesis. Ultimately, we delivered harsh yet cost effective news to the client. They adopted our recommendation.

Research

We partnered with market organizers to explore the steady decrease in attendance. Our research plan included speaking with all key players of the market. Vendors, customers, and organizers.

HOPE’s acronym stands for Helping Other People Everywhere. However…the market was operating out of tradition and not providing much help to its vendors. Through generative research we sought to better understand behaviors and attitudes of those interacting with HOPE.

We interviewed 21 participants, at the market, in homes, kitchens, breweries, coffee roasters and on farms. Our focus was to learn what brought these people to the market, and why, Sunday after Sunday.

Insights & Design Criteria

1. Evaluating The Vendor Experience

Due to its low barrier to entry, HOPE attracts vendors with little experience and no other options for exposure. Two vendors: Janet and Jessie scaled their product at HOPE.

Despite sales at the market going down they needed to pay their stall fees to the organizers. Jessie saw profit losses week after week.

One vendor expressed his affinity for HOPE, it initially furthered his brand Wunderpilz’s success. However, Walter registered for a stall at another market, citing the drastic change in the neighborhood for the market’s decline.

How could vendors regain value from the market?

“Here you have time to connect with people… but in order to have a business you need to meet your margins.”

-Janet

2. Vendor Letdown

Vendors aspired to reach commercial success but the current structure of the market inhibited growth. The experiential environment brought vendors together.

The market was their incubator. Their common bond was that the organizers were failing them miserably.

“Sometimes I dont sell anything… instead of earning I’ve been losing money. All of this time I’ve been losing money….all the time.”

-Jessie

3. Conversations with Customers

One new customer expressed sorrow at visiting such an empty market. While a local patron expressed the neighborhood’s need for HOPE. Our conversations with customers were polarizing and varied greatly.

We deducted that customers attending the market are doing so out of a sense of charity and nostalgia for the old HOPE market, not because they are finding current value in their experience.

“I want the market to survive in this neighborhood. I think it’s a need. I want it to exist.”

– Sam, loyal customer

“I really don’t like the way it feels here. It’s just sad. Honestly, I will not be coming back.”

– Jack, first time customer

Co-designing with Organizers

Organizers inherited the market several months before our project began. We listened to their struggles with operations, budget, city restrictions and volunteer capacity.

The markets parent organization – The HOPE Foundation provided nominal guidance. With no overhead, a nominal budget, and a hap-hazard management system organizers faced an uphill battle from day one on the job.

Attempts to Enhance the Market Experience

The market had a lot to offer, but had become disjointed over time. Together with the market organizers, we presented the following recommendations to the HOPE Foundation’s board of directors in early December of 2020.

1. Refocus as a small business incubator.
HOPE’s low barrier to entry and nominal stall fees levelled the playing field for new business owners. HOPE could partner with mentors to facilitate entreprenuers showing their work.

2. Embrace the change in the neighborhood.
Curate the market to provide high end options with more prepared goods. Luxury accommodations are regularly opening on the East Side. Within walking distance there are several new hotels and hundreds of Airbnbs.

3. Meet customer expectations, focus on bringing in more farmers and fresh produce.
The decline of the HOPE Farmers Market is a symptom result of the popular Mueller Farmers Market located just three miles away. By having more farmers with fresh produce the market could cater to what Austin residents expect in a farmers market.

The Undesired Conclusion

Our design team proposed a fourth recommendation which was to simply close the market all together. It wasn’t the happy path, but the market was operating at a deficit. Through our conversations, it was evident that tensions were rising within the HOPE community.

We proposed this in our meeting, outside the slide deck to the client… The client called to notify us that in February of 2020, the 10 year tradition of HOPE Farmers Market was shutting down.

Dan O'Halloran

Design & Research