House2Home is a new startup that wants to make it easier for people to decorate their new homes and apartments with prints, posters, framed photos, lighting and other small accent accessories on a budget.
Many people who have recently moved to a new home or apartment feel frustrated choosing new decorative. They want to buy multiple items to personalize their new place, but they don’t feel confident doing it on their own. There are many products out there, but they feel unsure about how to make sure stuff they buy looks good all together in their place while trying to stick to a budget.
House2Home is an opportunity for people who have recently moved to a new place to easily find a desired decoration kit based on their budget and style for their new place.
4 out of 5 users found that the flow was smooth and they loved the colors and the design. They were interested in how the filters helped them see different kits with different styles and colors.
I followed the Design Thinking process as a roadmap to make sure that my design decisions were supported by user research and feedback.
On the first day of the House2Home project, I began by collecting information. This included reviewing interview results, a persona, and the project's goals.
The persona has been shown below:
I organized all the notes given to me to create an affinity map to help me categorize all the pain points from the interview results to see which ones were the most significant for users.
To analyze the interview answers more effectively, I categorized them into four groups based on different criteria: budget, level of confusion experienced by users during the buying process, enjoyment level of the buying experience, and the frequency of buying small items for their living space.
Here are the most important parts of the affinity maps:
40%
Tried to stick to their budget when deciding to buy decorative items for their place
50%
Get confused when buying items for their place
I used the available information about the problem and the persona to create a user flow map, which helped me to gain insight into the users' objectives and visualize the website's design.
Day 1 was all about understanding the problem so I felt confident about who I would be designing for and the pain points they currently face.
Having gained an understanding of the problem and my target audience on the second day, I began exploring websites with similar goals to draw inspiration for structuring a solution that would assist people in decorating their homes.
I analyzed user flows for purchasing products by studying websites like Wayfair, Macys, Stitchfix, and Costco. In particular, I paid close attention to Wayfair, which provides users with the option of purchasing a kit, among other features.
During this stage, I identified the screen where Ally needs to choose between different kits as the most crucial screen. To explore possible design solutions, I used the Crazy 8's method to sketch eight different ideas for this screen.
Crazy 8s method helped me to rapidly sketch different ideas about how this screen could appear.
After considering the persona's preferences, I decided not to use a quiz-based approach and instead provide Ally with more freedom to browse different kits by using filters for style, color, and price. I then sketched the screens before and after that.
These screens include:
On the third day, I focused on developing the three screens from the previous day and constructed a storyboard that mapped out the necessary steps for Ally to select her preferred kit.
The goal of my sketches was to provide Ally with the flexibility to customize the kits according to her taste, while also presenting her with various suggestions in case she wanted to explore more options.
All essential screens, such as the screen allowing Ally to select which living space she wants to buy the kit for, the filtering screen for customizing the kits, and the screen for replacing any items if desired, were incorporated.
To ensure consistency with the House2Home brand color and represent the natural theme of a decoration website, I utilized green for the call-to-action buttons. In addition, I opted for a white background color to convey a sense of cleanliness and purity, which is essential for a decoration website's overall aesthetic.
Although I felt the pressure of time constraints, I did my best to create the screens that aligned with my vision for Ally's user experience. However, due to the limited timeframe, I had to focus on creating the essential flow for Ally, which includes discovering decoration ideas, personalizing her kit, replacing items as desired, and ultimately shopping for the final kit.
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I conducted a moderated usability test on five participants. I gave them a scenario with a series of tasks to find out how smooth the user flow would be for Ally.
Out of the five participants in the usability test, four of them reported that the user flow was smooth and easy to navigate. They also provided positive feedback on the website's design and color scheme. Additionally, they found the filters to be useful in enabling them to view various kits with different styles and colors.
The most important results of the user testing before and after revising my design solutions are listed below:
Users were not sure what would happen after clicking “See Similar Items”
Added a title as “Discover Similar Items” to make the section clear
Users couldn't find similar items after clicking “See Similar Item”
Added a hint as “Please scroll down to see similar items”
Here are some final screens after usability test:
Helen Keller: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
