Overview
Decorating a new apartment can be stressful and overwhelming. Users might know what look they want their apartment to have, but they might not know exactly what pieces to buy that would help them achieve that look or have the budget to purchase all the pieces they find in a staged image they found online.
Problem
House2Home is a start-up service aiming to provide users with curated decor starter packs that fit their desired aesthetic and budget from the comfort of their own home. This website takes the guesswork out of decorating an apartment and ensures confidence that the user can create the look they want without spending more money than they originally planned to.
Solution
Over the course of a 5-day design sprint, I was able to understand, sketch, storyboard and prototype a potential design solution based on the user research provided by House2Home. On the final day of the design sprint, I tested the design with 5 users to determine if the design helped alleviate the problem and determine how the design could be better enhanced in the future.
My Role
Day One: Map
Research for this design sprint was provided by House2Home. I synthesized the user research notes and the recorded user interview to create the following affinity map to identify the key themes and pain points.
Key themes & quotes from research
Budget: Users have a certain amount of money they would like to spend on decor for their apartment and could feel limited by this number.
“I don’t have a huge budget for strictly decorative items…”
Achieving the Look: Users have a certain aesthetic in mind they would like their apartment to have but do not know what pieces they need to purchase to achieve that look.
“I know what I like and I know what looks good for the most part, but when it comes to putting all that together, I never know if it’s going to work.”
Stressful/Overwhelming: Users can feel overwhelmed with deciding which pieces will look good in their apartment or by the amount of time it takes to come to these decisions and might end up not buying anything at all.
“I’m not super picky about specific items, so spending time searching for stuff gets tiring.”
“Usually I get overwhelmed and end up not buying anything.”
Quantity vs. Quality: Users have to choose between buying a lot of cheap little pieces or spending a lot of money on larger, more quality pieces.
“I want the stuff I buy to make the most impact in giving my apartment the look and feel I want.”
How Might We’s
Using these themes, I came up with the following “How Might We” questions to be addressed later in the design process:
How might we ensure the process of decorating an apartment is more straightforward?
How might we ensure that users only see items that are in their budget?
How might we ensure that users feel confident knowing all decor items look good together?
How might we allow users the freedom to determine how many and which specific pieces they want to buy out of each kit?
User Map
Once the problem was broken down into more specific pain points, I created a potential user map that would help address some of these questions.
Day Two: Sketch
I started Day Two of the design sprint by doing competitive research. I conducted lightning demos to see what currently popular furniture/decor companies currently have to address the problem. I also looked at how companies in other industries allow users to build their own bundles.
Lightning Demos
For these demos, I focused on the Ikea, Alabaster and West Elm’s websites.
Premade furniture sets
Allowed user to narrow down sets based on the filters they select
Allows users to build bundle by selecting items from an image
Shows which item is selected on the image and on the side
Includes the price of the individual item on the image
Shows which items are in the inspiration image and the prices
Shows how to style selected piece
Shows items in real homes and other items in the collection
Gives user the option to swap out pre-styled items
Crazy 8s
The Crazy 8’s method was used to design 8 separate ideas for the most critical screen - the screen where a user got to select which kit they wanted to purchase for their apartment. This screen is the most important because it will determine whether or not a user will feel empowered to purchase a kit from House2Home.
This screen needs to give users the comfort and confidence to know that all the pieces that they are selecting will go together and give them the look they want, but also meets the budget criteria they have.
Solution Sketch
After completing the Crazy 8s exercise, I created the solution sketch that would be used to as the base of the House2Home design.
Day 3: Decide
At this point, I was undecided on which approach I wanted to proceed with. Both Screen 2 and Screen 3 from my solution sketch could have been used as the most critical screen in the design. I decided to list out the pros and cons of each to see which design I wanted to focus on.
Design 1:
Allows users to see all items in kit working together
The image would be the main element that is changing to show the different options (room size, pieces in kit, etc.)
Allows users to build their own kits
Pros:
Users might like items in image that are not included in the starter kit
Would have to use personalized images for the website vs stock images
Would require either a hover option or new screen to explain details for each item in kit
Cons:
Design 2:
Users could select the starter kit as is and add to cart - less decision fatigue on the user
Simpler UI to design - could use stock images in prototype
Next screen could show more specifics about each item in the kit - would be static information
Pros:
Pre-defined kits - but user could have the option to swap out specific items
Users would only see the items in the kit instead of seeing the items in an actual room
Users might not be able to see the swapped out items in the full picture of the kit
Cons:
Final Design Decision
I decided to go with Design 1 because it allowed users to have a more complete vision of what the starter kit would look like altogether instead of just seeing 3 random items but not necessarily in a room together. Design 1 also allows users to add and remove items from the kit based on the image they see, giving the users more control and security when deciding to purchase the kit.
House2Home Storyboard
It was often easy to start designing screens that might not be necessary for the minimum viable product, but once I referenced my user map from Day One, it became easier to decipher between which screens were needed for the MVP and which screens could be added as a future enhancement.
The checkout screens were included for the sprint testing to ensure that the process of using House2Home was smooth and user-friendly from beginning to end.
The checkout process is very similar to how other e-commerce sites work today and includes the option to either check out as a guest or for users to log into their accounts and save their shipping and payment information for future ease of use.
Day Four: Prototype
The prototype for the House2Home design is clean and simple, which allows the images of the kits to be the main focal points for the users.
After navigating away from the home screen, users are prompted to choose which decor style they like or a "Not Sure?" option. Reducing the number of initial decisions down to just what style they like helps make the process more straightforward.
Once in their selected decor style, users are then able to choose which room they would like to decorate and how much they would like to spend for each item. This screen helps ensure that the user only sees items that are within their budget.
When building their kit, users are directed to a screen that allows them to select decor items out of an image of all the pieces together in sample room. This selection process helps ensure the user that all items are cohesive.
Users have the option to select as many or as few items from this kit as they want, giving users the freedom to only buy the specific pieces they want and only as many pieces as they feel are necessary.
Once users decide which pieces they want, they can add them to their cart and purchase them either as a guest or by signing into their saved House2Home account.
Once the shopping is complete, users are then shown a confirmation screen to ensure them that their order was received and will be shipped to them ASAP!
Day Five: Test
User Testing
I used the Five Act Interview format during this usability testing to make the participants feel more comfortable, while still offering solutions and not afraid to voice their opinion when they felt an area of the design could be improved.
Goals:
Determine if building kit based on an image was intuitive
Identify potential pain points with the design
Identify any features that would enhance the user experience
Participant Criteria:
5 users
Graduated from college and moved into their first official apartment within the past 5-10 years
Familiar with the process of trying to decorate an apartment from scratch on a budget
User Feedback
Overall, users thought the design was clean, simple and easy to follow. They all liked the concept of pre-built kits that could help simplify the apartment furnishing process. A few key concepts that users mentioned / potential areas of improvement were:
Adding a search functionality that allows users to search for what they want
A quiz that would reduce the amount of decisions users have to make (asking them specific questions about their apartment (number of bed/bath, what room they want to furnish, total sq. ft, etc) and then direct them to the kit that would work best for them
Testimonials and customer reviews to see highest rated and recently popular kits
Design Updates
Based on the user feedback, I added the ability for users to search for specific items and the reviews to each kit/item to the design.
If more time allowed, I would continue to enhance the design with the features listed below and conduct more user testing to better enhance the user experience for the House2Home design.
Future Considerations
Filters for search results and decor elements sub-categories
Swap functionality for items in kit
Add total number of search results
Add customer reviews and customer images to specific product pages
Add “Complete This Kit” option to individual item pages
Conclusion
Since I was a one person team, the steps had to be reduced down to make them more achievable in a 5 day period. Although it was an abbreviated design sprint, I do see how this format could be beneficial for a team to make a lot of progress in a short amount of time. At first I thought the pace of the design sprint would be intimidating and hard to complete the necessary steps each day, but to my surprise, I was able to come up with a viable design solution after just a few days! Overall I think design sprints are a very valuable skill that I look forward to using again in the future