Home / The MADE
The World's Largest Video Game Library
In partnership with UofT Blueprint, a student-run product team that builds software for nonprofits, I served as a Product Designer for the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE). I took ownership of an artifact lending platform that allows administrators to efficiently approve, monitor, and track inventory requests.
Role
Product Designer
Timeframe
Fall 2025, 4 Months
Team
1 Designer, 3 PMs, 9 Engineers
Context
A playable archive of your favourite classic video games
The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) is a nonprofit museum dedicated to preserving video game history through a collection of 50,000+ games, consoles, and digital artifacts.
Unlike traditional museums, visitors can borrow, explore, and play its collection firsthand.
A few of the games visitors can borrow
The Problem
Items fall off the radar between checkout and return
Despite the scale of its collection, the MADE relies on a single Google Sheet to manage its inventory. Every movement is logged by hand, leaving room for missed updates and inconsistent records.
Tickets pile up as the spreadsheet falls behind
Insight 1
Manual tracking causes constant errors
Since every update is manual, information is often incomplete or out of date. This makes it harder to know which items are available and where they are.
Manual entry leaves blanks
Insight 2
Requests are difficult to prioritize at scale
With multiple requests at once, admins have no way to see what needs attention first. Admins end up spending excessive time sorting through submissions.
Urgent requests get buried
Opportunity Areas
Visualizing the inventory request lifecycle
The first step was to bring structure to an informal lending process by mapping it into four clear stages. Defining this established a shared view of each request's progress and clarified the transitions admins needed to manage.
Which factors influence the decision-making process?
Every approval starts with a quick judgment call. Breaking down this decision helped identify the essential checks the interface needed to support and made the approval process easier to follow.
A request is only approved if it passes both checks
Iteration
Admins don’t have time to open every request
Not every request requires a detailed review. For straightforward submissions, admins just need to confirm the items and approve. Surfacing those items on the dashboard removes the extra click for routine approvals.
Hover Tooltip
Previews items in a compact popup on hover
Disappears once the cursor moves away
Shows only name, location, and availability
Inline Dropdown
Expands inline to list every item in a table
Includes condition and status for closer review
Takes up more room on the dashboard
Someone else requested this item…now what?
When two requests have overlapping items, spotting a conflict is only half the job. Admins still have to compare the competing requests and decide who gets the item. I explored two ways to make that comparison efficient.
Side-by-Side Modal
Places both requests next to each other in a popup
Covers the request the admin was reviewing
Repeats details already shown on the page
Vertical Drawer
Slides in beside the current request
Lists only the conflicting request and its items
Keeps the original request in view while comparing
Final Solution
Evaluate requests before approving
Priority and availability badges, needed-by dates, and item counts let admins scan the queue at a glance. Expanding a request reveals each item's location and condition, so simple requests can be approved without leaving the dashboard.
Resolve conflicts without losing context
When an item is already requested elsewhere, the conflict is flagged directly within the submission. A tooltip links to the overlapping request, which opens in a side drawer for closer comparison.
Want to hear the full story?
Please reach out to me if you'd like to learn more! I typically share my complete research process and detailed design explorations in an interview setting or coffee chat.
