Project Overview
House2Home is an e-commerce startup company that focuses on selling home décor and accessories.
They need help designing a website for people who just moved into their new apartment and want to decorate their home easily and cost effectively.
The whole designing process was a modified GV design sprint. It covered concepts like understanding the problem, to validating all findings by running a usability testing sessions.
Role
User Research, UX Design
Project Type
Conceptual
My Contributions
Conducting user research, prototyping and running a usability test in a 5-day period.
Project Timeline
1 week
Problem Space
Moving homes every 1 or 2 years can be quite stressful. Most people want to settle in as quickly as possible, make their new place cozy, nice and homey.
Many people struggle to find nice décor items that would fit their taste, style and a budget.
User Goals
To feel confident in styling and personalizing the new space.
To be able to stick to a budget.
To save time by finding products quickly that would look good together with already owned items.
Solution
To create a website that provides an easy way for users to find a stylish, affordable package (Starter Kit) of interior décor, and test it in a virtual space before making the final purchase.
Research
Day 1: Understanding the problem
Since the initial marketing data and insights from the user interviews were provided by the House2Home team, I needed to review all the information and identify the most important aspects of the given challenge.
I discovered that House2Home’s main focus is people who just moved into the new apartment. These potential customers are looking forward to decorate their new place with multiple items that meet their needs with respect to style and budget.
I gathered some important insights after reviewing potential users and quickly sketched a map of 3 possible end-to-end user experience solutions.
A possible end-to-end user experience
Research highlights from potential users
Research highlights from potential users
Day 2: Sketching solutions
Modified “Lightning demos”
I selected my few favorite interior design websites in order to get inspired for the challenge I have been assigned to work on. I paid attention at the logic of navigation, aesthetics and some features that stood out and inspired me to design the website for House2Home.
Key Takeaways:
The screen shows the picture of the interior according to the design style.
People who don’t know interior design styles would find this very helpful, since they can visualize it and choose the feel of the style they like and products for the specific style.
Key Takeaways:
Ikea’s example lets people scan their actual room and upload it to the website.
Users can add suggested products to their room and see how they would look in terms of their unique space and furniture.
Key Takeaways:
Crate And Barrel’s screen shows products with images on the right side and the filtering section on the left.
People can easily browse selected products and meanwhile update their filtering options to expand or narrow down their search.
This screen was chosen as the critical one because of the defined user goals and frustrations. People were struggling finding nice, affordable pieces that would fit the interior style, their budget and the type of apartment they have.
CRAZY 8’S
I created a screen that has an option for people to choose the style and mood they would like for their apartment. The system would recommend all the products to fit the selected style. Users would also be able to filter their priorities like price, product type, size, color and get recommendations for the best option.
SOLUTION SKETCH
Day 3: Creating a storyboard
I decided to create two important red routes for users. One of them is meant to help people who would like to explore more on interior design styles and find items to fit that style in their apartment. In order to achieve that I designed Styles & Mood section where people could choose the style they like and then select suggested packages of products in that style category.
To test the chosen item in the visual 3D space, people have an option to scan their own room using a barcode. They would have to download an app and upload the scanned room’s picture into the website. This option would be perfect for people who have more time to explore and want to have a detailed idea of the product in their individual room.
Another red route is for people who don’t want to spend too much time downloading external app, but they would like to see how the chosen decoration would look in the small space. They have an option to choose a layout that is similar to their apartment and see how the product would look like in the space. They can choose from variety of layout options, filter products by style, price, and type.
Day 4: Prototyping
Creating the prototype for House2Home’s website, I focused on the scenario as if the user wanted to check the interior design styles first and then choose the interior decoration package according to the chosen style and room they needed help with.
I designed the prototype in a way so that potential users could have more options to choose from. For example, if they would want to scan their room, or choose a pre-designed room, they would have the ability to do so.
Day 5: Testing
For the usability testing I reached out to participants who are interested in decorating their homes, and have also had experience moving apartments or houses.
During the interview I briefly explained to each participant what the website is about, and created a scenario so that they could navigate through the screen as if they were actually shopping for their home décor.
Participants’ feedback
Lessons Learned
The overall experience working on a design sprint helped me to better understand the fast process of creating ideas an validating designs for the company and their potential users.
I learned the importance of being able to identify the right problem, pay attention to the details and focus on being efficient in order to achieve goals in the limited period of time.
Interviewing people for the usability test provided me with the clarity of House2Home prototypes’ effectiveness. Majority of design decisions were well received by the usability testing participants.
People enjoyed the ability to shop for pre-selected products for their apartment and said that the offered starter kits would definitely help them to make their final decision faster and with confidence.
Sources
Images:
https://www.luluandgeorgia.com/pages/shop-by-room
https://www.realtor.com
https://stylecurator.com.au/how-to-do-hygge/
https://www.crateandbarrel.com/