eBay announced on Tuesday Garden by eBay, an area on its website where it showcases new concepts (called "seeds") and new features already on the site (called "plants") and solicits input from users. The first seed showcased on the Garden site is a new search experience, but the concept of letting users try out a new search experience live on the site is not new. And while the New York Times saw the launch of the Garden as a cultural change at eBay, quoting a manager who said it was "imperative that we have a deeper conversation with customers and buyers," it's difficult to discern what's new besides the landing page.

The new "streamlined search" experience showcased in the Garden allows users to compare auction and Buy It Now listings side-by-side, refine their searches with fewer clicks, get an at-a-glance view of an item's name, price and format and view same-screen pop-up windows for item detail.

eBay has been testing some of these search features for 2 years, such as the side-by-side view reviewed in this 2008 AuctionBytes article. One wonders why eBay doesn't just launch it as an optional feature, and let users decide if they want to use it or not. And users are far more concerned about what search results are returned, yet it does not solicit feedback on Best Match.

As for how eBay employees are organized into teams to work on projects like search, eBay has been talking about cross-functional teams designed to promote faster decision-making focused on the user experience since 2006 (link).

eBay said it would provide the input it gathers from users on the Garden directly to the teams that manage new, proposed or existing features. This will, according to eBay, bring sellers and buyers directly into the innovation process, and allowing eBay to introduce, test and roll out new features much faster than before.

Christopher Payne, eBay Vice President of Search, said, "The new Garden by eBay represents a new collaborative conversation with the eBay community - a chance to listen to their thoughts on upcoming features, and to bring them closer to our own innovation process. And by seeding the Garden with streamlined search, we're asking for the community's input on improving one of the most important areas of eBay.com."

Right now, Garden by eBay lets users leave feedback - eBay has not yet explained how the collaborative "conversation" would take place.

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You can watch videos of the development team on the eBay Ink Youtube channel.