House2Home Case Study
Creating an easy way for customers to instantly decorate rooms in their homes
Overview
Problem
House2Home, a new e-commerce start-up, needs to sell “starter kits” to help customers instantly decorate their spaces.
Solution designed as website for larger screens.
Focus on users that want a “starter kit” of multiple products to decorate a new apartment.
House2Home focuses on decorative products and accessories that are $10 - $50.
Constraints
Solution
Participate in a design sprint to come up with possible solutions and create a user flow.
My Role
UI/UX Designer
Moody Mauve Starter Kit
The Process
Day 1 - Understand
Persona
Based on the information from the brief, I was able to:
determine the problem space
Most customers abandon the home décor search because they are not confident about pinking accessories that will work well in their space, look good together, and fit within their budget.
House2Home’s survey and interviews revealed that customers need a “Starter Kit” to help them instantly decorate rooms in their homes or apartments.
understand the persona.
Affinity Diagram
An affinity diagram helped me synthesize that data from the surveys and interviews and the persona.
Problem Statements
Using all of the insights I gained, I came up with problem statements.
HMW help users choose home accessories that work well together?
HMW help users decorate a room within their budget?
HMW help users purchase home décor accessories that fits their unique style?
Journey Map
The problem statements helped me come up with a possible end-to-end user flow that would help users achieve their goals.
Day 2 - Sketch
Lightning Demos
I researched several company websites to get inspiration before coming up with my own sketches.
I was inspired by this site’s use of images to show items that are sold in groupings.
I was inspired by way this site allows users to filter their search results.
I was inspired by way this site lets users see the products displayed in rooms.
Sketches
Now that I have inspiration and my user Chelsea at the forefront of my mind, I set out to create sketches.
Crazy 8’s was a quick way for me to come up with sketches of design solutions.
I asked myself:
What is the most important step in my user’s journey?
What step comes right before and right after that step?
Data from the briefing helped me determine that the most important step is the user making the design choice. It was the step most often abandoned in previous user experiences.
Day 3 - Decide & Storyboard
Storyboarding
Using my sketches and three-panel board, I have to decide the solution to proceed with.
My solution must have:
A way to users to filter the results based on their room/style needs.
A way for users to see how décor could look in a room.
A way for users to stick within their budget.
Day 4 - Prototype
Prototyping
Now it’s time to turn my storyboard into a prototype.
Here are some of the reasons for my design decisions:
I drew color inspiration from the House2Home logo.
I put the new product “Starter Kits” front and center so users would notice it.
I chose elegant room images and product images to help users envision spaces.
I used dropdown menus to save space and to give the user an easy way to filter results.
I chose Inter font because it’s easy to read across devices & screens.
I used universal icons and text to help users understand.
Prototype
Day 5 - Test
Interviews
Testing interviews were conducted to weed out problems before moving forward with the project.
5 potential House2Home customers were recruited and interviewed to determine:
Are there areas in the flow that cause user frustration?
Is the UI and wording effective?
Test Results
Insights:
Users wanted the option to delete items from the kit.
Users wanted a more detailed description of the individual items in the kit.
The term “Starter Kit” made users think less of home décor and more of 1st home basic need items such as a trashcan, towels, cleaning products, etc.
Snippet of interview
Site Improvements
Based on the interview insights, the following changes were made to improve user experience.
Before
After
Changed regular typeface to bold typeface so users will notice & understand what “Starter Kits” are.
Added a way for users to delete an item from the Starter Kit.
Added detailed descriptions of each item in the Starter Kit.
Reflection
Learning
It is not always necessary to reinvent the wheel. You can look at what others have done well and draw inspiration from that. As you iterate there will be opportunities for new, innovative designs.
Next Steps
If I were to continue working on this project, I would:
Continue to build out the design adding more filter options
Add “recommended items” that can be added to starter kits
Consider offering a basic needs starter kit