PassItForward
Making it feel safe to give things away.
Overview
Free things shouldn’t be this hard to give away.
PassItForward is a community platform that makes giving away unwanted items as effortless as selling them. We built it on three principles: build trust first, encourage neighborhood connections, and reduce uncertainty at every stage of the exchange. Over 3 months, our UX, product and research teams took it from research to a tested high-fidelity prototype.
The post flow, in the app
Problem statement
Giving items away comes with real risks around trust and safety. When people hold back, things that could have been reused become waste.
What’s at stake
I started this project believing sustainability would be what moved people to give. It wasn’t.
Solution
A giving platform you can check at every step.
PassItForward lets people verify who they’re dealing with, see an item clearly before they go for it, coordinate the pickup in the app, and build a reputation over time. Try the prototype below.
The three things people needed to trust before giving or taking anything. They return in every section below.
Process
Okay, but wait... how did we get here? And what did we have to unlearn on the way?
Research
Competitive analysis + 5 user interviews
Define
Journey map, HMW, ideation
Design
User flow, wireframes, visual design, high fidelity
Validate
Prototype + usability testing with 5 tasks
Reflection
Lessons learned + future direction
Competitive analysis
Every option solved only one part of the problem.
Before designing anything, we looked at how people already give things away, and judged each platform on community, trust and ease of rehoming.
User interviews
So we asked people how they really let go of things.
We interviewed 5 people who had bought, sold, donated or picked up secondhand items. We wanted to know why people donate instead of sell, what makes them trust someone, what frustrates them about pickups, what feels unsafe, and how they communicate.
We asked about
Example questions
“When deciding to rehome an item, how do you choose whether to sell, donate, or give it away for free?”
“What factors do you consider before deciding to claim or buy an item — condition, location, trust in the seller?”
The twist
It wasn’t about the planet, people wanted to give things away, but what was holding them back was trust.
Trust and convenience was critical for people to be more sustainable, and that changed how we approached the whole product. Their worries came down to three things: the person, the pickup and the item.
Many interviewees had trouble trusting people online.
The exchange itself felt unsafe.
Reassurance about the item heavily influences behavior: people won’t go for a pickup unless they believe it’s worth the effort.
Journey map
Doubt didn’t arrive all at once. It piled up.
We mapped the whole journey, from deciding to give something away to finishing the pickup, to find where uncertainty stopped people from following through. The pain clustered in three stages: searching for listings, messaging the person giving the item, and coordinating the pickup. Anxiety peaked at messaging and pickup, and small uncertainties added up along the way.
People needed confidence more than convenience.
So we stopped trying only to improve discovery, and focused on reducing uncertainty: verification, richer listings, reputation, and simpler pickup coordination.
How might we
So the question changed.
How might we provide verification when it comes to users, transaction experiences, and items in the most effective way for platform users who want to give items away — in order to reduce waste and support the recycling of items.
Waste was still the reason. Trust became the way there.
Ideation
An answer for every worry.
Starting from the friction points in research, we generated ideas for every stage, from first discovery to accountability after the pickup. We went for quantity first, then kept what best served our first principle: build trust first.
Verify the person
Getting started flow- Identity verification at sign up
- A pop-up that blocks until the account is verified
- Driver’s license & home address upload
Verify the item
Posts- Detailed item description selections
- Post status: active, pending, gone
- Tags & categories (furniture, compact, etc.)
- Images & videos
- Location for pickup
Verify the pickup
Chat flow- In-app transaction coordination
- General location meetup recommendations
- Select & confirm pickup arrangements
- Planned location, time, and live ETA
- Person appearance preview
Build community trust
Profiles- Community reviews and earned badges
- My Friends network
- Trusted seller indicators
User flow
Trust checkpoints, not just a finish line.
Instead of optimizing only for speed, we put a trust signal at each critical moment: before browsing, during discovery, when messaging and after pickup. The flow lets people verify their identity, discover items with confidence, coordinate the pickup clearly and build a reputation over time.
Click to view in detail
Wireframes & mid-fidelity
Familiar on the surface, more detailed underneath.
The post flow is the item side of the trio: a listing is where “is this worth the trip?” gets answered, or doesn’t. I kept the steps people already know from free-marketplace apps (choosing a give or ask listing, adding images, picking a general pickup area) so it would feel standard. Then I worked detailed item description selections into those same steps, so a richer listing never felt like extra work.
My piece: the post flow, which I designed on my own.
Visual design
Designing for confidence.
The visual language balances friendliness and trust: it should feel like a neighborhood, and still feel safe enough to finish an exchange.
Design principles
Click to view in detail
High fidelity
Post creation, finished.
The post flow: a trust-first community giving experience.
Give or ask.
A post starts the way people already know from free-marketplace apps: choose a give or an ask listing.
Images up top.
Photos lead the listing, the change round one of testing asked for.
Details, as selections.
Detailed item description selections make a richer listing without extra work.
Tags and a pickup area.
Tags, categories and a general pickup area finish the post.
Usability testing
Three rounds, 20 testers, one question: could people post with confidence?
Goal: validate whether our trust-centered experience helped people confidently complete common tasks.
What we tested
- 01Post creation flow completion
- 02Feature clarity & helpfulness
- 03Friction in the experience
- 04Comparison to the tools people already use
Who tested it
Example scenario
You’re a UT student living in West Campus near the Orange Market. One day you decide to make a post on PassItForward because you want to give away a kitchen ladle you accidentally bought too many of when you went to the store recently. Make a post that is shared to nearby neighborhoods with 2 relevant images and 3 tags.
Images felt like an afterthought, so I moved them to the top
The post flow concept resonated with people, but the usability wasn’t there yet.
What we saw
I had put the description box first, so an added photo just appeared beneath it. In an app trying to prioritize descriptive listings, people said the images felt like an afterthought. Round one caught me making a smaller version of my first mistake: designing around what I thought mattered instead of what people needed to see.
How I addressed it
I moved images to the top of the listing, borrowing the emphasis social media platforms give to strong imagery alongside a description.
Selected buttons read backwards in dark mode, so I flipped them
There were still some usability comments, but this time less critical.
What we saw
Selected buttons went from light to dark, which clashed with the dark interface and confused people.
How I addressed it
After reviewing industry-standard patterns for dark-mode interfaces, I switched the variants so selected buttons are light.
People compared it to Facebook Marketplace, and some thought ours was better
With our largest group of testers, there was little to no critical feedback on the post flow.
What people said
Most comments compared the post flow to Facebook Marketplace. Some people appreciated that it felt familiar; others believed our experience was actually better.
“Feels better than what I’m currently using. Especially better than Facebook... This really does a great job of streamlining the process.”
A round three tester
We started with a stat about scams on Facebook Marketplace. We ended with testers comparing ours to it, and some preferring ours.
Reflection & next steps
Trust isn’t one feature. It’s dozens of small decisions.
Every screen, label and flow state could raise or wear down someone’s confidence. Trust is built, or broken, in the small moments between actions.
The three worries from research, now three things the design answers.
Biggest shift
Sustainability wasn’t the real motivator.
Trust and convenience mattered far more, and that changed the whole product.
Biggest UX lesson
Trust is dozens of small decisions.
Every screen, label and flow state can raise or wear down someone’s confidence.
Looking forward
Focus on what completes an exchange.
Validate which trust features matter most, and keep simplifying pickup: the highest-anxiety moment.
Where I’d go next
Two directions I’m most excited about
Deepen trust and verification
Research which verification and reputation signals (badges, reviews, community endorsements) most influence whether an exchange actually gets completed. Trust is the product, so it’s worth getting precise about.
Push accessibility to WCAG AA, and beyond
Audit color contrast, focus states, screen-reader flows and keyboard navigation to reach WCAG AA, and ideally AAA. A community platform only works if the whole community can use it.
