House2Home
House2Home is an online retailer who sells home decor items and accessories.
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Overview
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My Role
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House2Home wanted to help people who have recently moved into a new place to find a “starter kit” of multiple products to decorate their new apartment. They needed to develop a website or web app that customers would be able to use on their laptops or desktop computers.
I carried out design sprints to come up with an idea and to turn the idea into a prototype as quickly as possible. This prototype was then tested on a set of users to determine the usability of this new design. I worked as the designer of this app to research, ideate, design and test the prototype design. |
UX Designer
Research Synthesis (Primary Research, Use Cases); Ideating (User Stories, Sketching); Rapid Prototyping (User Flow, Wireframes, Hi-fi Prototypes); Testing (Usability Testing); |
What is House2Home?
House2Home is a website based platform where customers can log-in to find the perfect home decor solutions for their new place. They provide a service where the customer can visualize the room before they purchase home decor items. What's the problem?
Through customer surveys and research, House2Home discovered that many of their customers have just moved into new homes or apartments, and feel overwhelmed when trying to decide what to buy to decorate their new spaces. This ultimately results in customers abandoning their shopping journeys altogether. |
Frustrations:
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Understand & Map:
Research
House2Home had already conducted user interviews and asked users to tell us about a time they shopped for items to decorate a new home or apartment. After reviewing the research notes and interviews, I took notes and assembled an affinity map to organize the ideas. |
User interview insights
The most important insights I discovered about the users are:
Through customer surveys and research, House2Home discovered that many of their customers have just moved into new homes or apartments, and feel overwhelmed when trying to decide what to buy to decorate their new spaces. This ultimately results in customers abandoning their shopping journeys altogether. |
Fig: User Steps
Ideating:
Lightning Demos
I looked into various platforms to research how they solve this problem I searched for similar websites or products that I could use as inspiration for the House2Home project. The websites selected were Overstock, Wayfair, Build, Housecraft, IKEA, etc. |
Crazy 8s
It is the quickest way to come up with new ideas and to get unstuck on the very first idea. The most critical screen would be the selection screen where the user chooses from several covers. This screen could be the landing screen, or the screen right before reaching the landing screen. There were multiple approaches to solve this problem. Either to sort accordingly before showing the products or to filter the content after showing products. I realized that to have a filtered onboarding could be a turn down for casual visitors. An approach was needed where the user could look up the products and also sort them according to preferences when needed.
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Crazy8 design sketches
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Storyboarding:
A design that was able to achieve the both i.e. looking up the products and also sort them according to preferences was selected for further development.
Wireframes
The first screen is the landing/ home page, where the user would see the latest launches, recommendations, top-rated products, etc.
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The second screen is about the different collections. This screen can be reached when the user taps on a collection button on the home page. It has a list of items the user will put in various collections, which can be rooms or themes.
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The third screen is the augmented reality page where the user can visualize how the room looks, once he/she uploads a picture of the room. This page allows the user to try various items virtually.
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Redesigning insights and changes
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Testing:
I tested the wireframes with seven participants. Three of those testings were done remotely and four were done in person. The goal was to discover any potential areas that were unclear or problems with the user flow.
Redesigning solution The first thought behind designing the website was that it should be suitable for a first time user, a casual visitor, and a returning customer. So, I kept the layout similar to the most common shopping websites. I also wanted to present them an option to sort products according to there needs, so I offered the various categories on the homepage. Also, on-boarding is an important part, so I offered the on-boarding option on the homepage, where they get to know about the AR feature offered by the website. The user has to upload a picture of the room and the AR analyzes all the constrains. After that, the user can try and visualize multiple products in a room and select the ones that suites them best. |
Prototype:
I tried to keep this website as close to the usual shopping websites as possible. For the style, I selected white and green as the prominent color for the buttons. |
Augmented Reality introduction/on-boarding page
Functioning final design developed in Adobe XD
Some of the quotes from the interview are listed below,
I would love to use this type of feature while I am purchasing things. Initially I thought this is just another website. What's so new in this? But once I got into the AR part, I wanted to keep exploring more. |
I can visualize the products before I even buy them. That is so cool. |
Conclusion:
This was the first time I was designing a product based on an augmented reality feature. To think in a direction I don't have much experience and knowledge was a helpful experience. It will be helpful for me in the future while working on other products where I might have to learn new things before I even get started with the project.
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Other Projects
InduroAs a local software development firm is growing and is set for new challenges, we provided a rebranding solution that included redesigning the website.
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ZwendeProviding customized apparel, accessories, and home décor fitting individual needs while using modern solutions to preserve traditional designs.
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KrogerAs a UX Designer and a Kroger customer I took initiative to improve the user experience, help the customers save more, and live better.
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