The Troy Waterfront Farmers Market's vendor experience was scattered — visitors had no easy way to find specific vendors, food, or activities on-site. The goal was a single, centralized, interactive tool that market staff could actually keep up to date, and that visitors would actually use.

Improving vendor discovery meant understanding how visitors actually used the map — without collecting anything personal. Interaction data is routed through an anonymizer before it ever reaches the cloud or market staff, and an opt-in prompt makes that trade explicit: visitors can choose to share anonymous interaction data to help improve vendor discovery, with no personal data collected either way.

Built in Google My Maps and refined across two rounds of prototyping with market staff, the final map organizes vendors into filterable categories — handmade goods, prepared & specialty foods, produce, and more — so visitors can narrow down what they're looking for instead of scanning dozens of icons at once.

The map only works if staff can keep it current, so a How-To Guide was built for both sides: a staff-facing tutorial covering how to update vendor placements, and a visitor-facing guide explaining how to use the map's categories and filters.

MiniMart was a team project, built in close collaboration with Troy Waterfront Farmers Market staff, who provided vendor data and feedback across both rounds of prototyping.

The final MiniMart map is live and embedded on the market's website, with an FAQ and one-click access to Google Maps — racking up 950 views since it published, and maintained directly by market staff.