House2Home
An e-commerce design sprint targeting young professionals in need of home decor.
Role: UX & UI designer
Given a basic prompt regarding recent grads in need of affordable home decor, I was tasked with designing an e-commerce concept to aid users in buying apartment accents.
The sprint lasted 5 days from start to finish, the end goal being a functional prototype that allowed users to find and build a new collection of decor pieces.
House2Home wants to help customers who have recently moved into a new place acquire the finishing touches without spending a ton of money. Young professionals living on their own for the first time may not have a fully developed sense of style, want to elevate their decor, or perhaps they know what aesthetic they like, but have no idea where to start. Their customer base is a niche group, but definitely an underserved demographic in home decor. They specifically seek out accent pieces, rather than the large, investment pieces typically seen from decor companies.
House2Home offers an array of small, decorative home goods that can make a new place feel more put together. With their ‘starter kits,’ House2Home can sell customers multiple items that feel cohesive for a space and can be customized to meet a range of budgets. Customers need to simultaneously maximize their space and make it feel like home.
day 1: mapping
The first day of the sprint required me to consider the potential paths of decisions and actions a user would move through that result in the purchase of the company’s products.
Because not all customers have the same needs for their homes, I brainstormed a simple quiz to gauge style, product types and budgets. The results of this quiz would allow the site to filter out unnecessary items or push suggestions like storage solutions and wall decor. By selecting one or more items from each suggested category, a customer can build a “starter pack” and have a set of cohesive items to get settled at home.
I also recognized that some customers may already know what they need, so general category pages should also be included. The categories I chose to keep were: storage, plants, art, and decor.
day 2: Sketching
The second day, I brainstormed the screens a user would see in the quiz, which I thought should consist of aspirational home photos and personalized options for user needs. I did this with a crazy 8 exercise - 8 drawings in 8 minutes to get a few ideas going.
I also did a little competitive analysis on home decor sites - IKEA, CB2, and West Elm. I noted their site architecture and navigation, which were all similar, and also any features I thought were especially user friendly. One of these features was a small menu on product pages that suggested related items to match, and ultimately, urged adding extras to shopping carts.
I thought that a quiz might be helpful for those customers who are unsure about what they need or perhaps need help defining their personal style so I tried to think of the simplest questions I’d need for customized results.
DAY 3: Storyboarding
On the third day, I took my crazy 8 quiz drawings and competitive analysis notes to compile a storyboard of screens.
I built out a feasible start to finish red route for the users on the site: a landing page with a header menu, and options for either taking the quiz (if they need help) or to go straight to product categories (if they have a sense of their needs). I kept the language friendly and aimed at customers in their early 20s.
day 4: prototyping
The fun part! The fourth day was spent making screens that actually looked like screens. I used Figma to get the user journey laid out and found stock images for all of my product categories. With interactions in place, I was ready to test the prototype.
I kept the wireframes clean and simple so that products were the main focus. I chose a deep teal as the primary color for buttons and headers, as I thought it was a color that would work in a number of decorative styles. The quiz is a quick 4 steps, asking general questions about needs, wants, and budget and ultimately takes users to a list of recommendations for their starter pack.
DAY 5: TESTING
For the last day of the sprint, I gave my prototype to 5 people (my friends) along with some questions and tasks.
All users were apartment dwellers aged 23-30. After giving them an overview of the site, all of the testers agreed that they were in need of small home accents but are often paralyzed when shopping online and end up with nothing. I had positive reactions to the quiz and the offered product categories.
findings
- 3 users wanted more than 4 options per category when it came to the quiz results.
- 4 users liked the check icon to confirm that an item was added to the cart and 3 of them noted that they are often annoyed by a cart pop up on other sites.
- One user wanted to see the items listed by price, lowest to highest. No one else mentioned the sorting at all.
- No one used the ‘add an extra item feature’ while reviewing their chosen items. They thought 4 items were enough to get started.
conclusions
I was pleased with the results of the testing and with the sprint overall. Users seemed like they would actually use a quiz feature for help with home decor if that were an actual company offering. I would have liked to design individual product pages with details and photos, and will perhaps iterate on this in the future. Exciting features could be developed in time - as AR rises in popularity, it would be great to virtually try out pieces in a customer’s own space.
