UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer

Role

Photoshop, Sketch, Figma

Tools

Timeline

5 days

House2Home is a home decor app, powered by augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Designed to eliminate indecision and empower anyone to easily and confidently be their own decorator, based on their budget and personal style. I designed this app from concept to prototype in a modified one-person Google Ventures (GV) design sprint over the course of 5 days.

House2Home

From Research to Testing

DESIGN PROCESS

Understand the problem and the user’s pain points
Start at the end by mapping a possible end-to-end user experience
Pick an important area to focus on

Day 1 :

Understand & Mapping

Mapping & Targeting

Once I got a solid idea of the scope and the end goal, I took a moment to start mapping out how Abby might find items to decorate her new apartment, and then narrowed in on the “Find My Style”step to formulate the key problem statements.

User Research Insight

Instead of buying individual item which takes a long time and adds the multitude of decision making, users are inclined to buy a bunch items together while staying within budget
Personal Taste Matters: users want to find items that are aligned with their personal taste.

Storyboarding
Make solution decisions

Day 3: Decide

Learning:

Don't try to build a flawless working model, instead, make decisions on what key function/pattern needs to be tested for the next phase.

Once I had analyzed and narrowed down my ideas, it was time to bring all my research together and try my hands on initial sketches for some rough solutions. I ran a Crazy 8s exercise to sketch 8 different frames.

2. Quick Ideation "Crazy 8’s”

Competitor Analysis
Sketch out competing solutions

Day 2 : Sketch

I went through several existing websites and apps to gather inspiration. This included all types of websites & apps, not just home decor websites. In this phase, I focused on comparing how problems are approached across different sources.

1. Lightning Demo

Validate assumptions
Get feedback from real users.
Iterate based on feedback

Day 5: Test

User Testing : 5 people, 1 scenario

Imagine, you just moved into your new apartment and finished unpacking, you realize that the living room and the entryway area look bare and lack some character.

So it's about time to do some decorating!

You have a budget around $350 as a start. Now you’ve downloaded this app. Try using the app to discover your style and get some idea for what to get and how they would come together in your room.

Bitesize UX provided a kickstart kit including challenge brief, background info, initial research highlights, persona, and an interview video with a customer.

I picked one screen from the “Crazy 8’s” exercise to develop further in order to create a solution sketch, a three-panel board that’s kind of like a tiny storyboard.

3. Solutions Sketch

Major Findings

All participants completed the task.
All participants stated that it's easy and intuitive to use even for first-time users.
Many participants responded this app would be helpful to use when they need ideas for decorating their places.
Overall, the feedback was very positive. The participants were having fun using the app.

Clearer product copy: “Be your own designer” screen is unclear what kind of designer the app is for.
Give users better control: At Style Matching, the progress bar gives some hint but some participants would like to see how many images are left. Can users go back a few images to change the answer if they have a change of mind? What if users feel the result is not reflecting their tastes, can they see more images and do more testing?
Improve the budget screen: remove the reset button and let users click on the first circle to reset. Add option for typing in number. “More” button looks too small and unclear.
Refine View in Room function: Need an option to add more photos of a room. Possible Solution: panoramic view that allows the user to move and zoom the picture.

Area for Improvement

Prototype Flow #1:

Pick Space & Set Budget

Prototype Flow #2:

Find Your Style

Prototype Flow #3:

Starter Kit & See In My Room

After mapping the experience flow, I wrote down my core problem statements, and decided to focus on the first two key problems going forward.

How might we help users to envision the starter kit items fit into the room (s)?
How might we provide better guidance for users to discover their personal decor styles?
How might we make users feel like they have a specialized interior designer to help them along the way?

What question did I want to answer?

Reflections

Design Sprints are an invaluable way to stretch the design skills in the heat of the moment. It's a powerful and effective way to solve design problems quickly and a great collaboration method to put forth an idea and test it early on.

Breaking Old Habit & Try New Method

Pushing through this design sprint solo unexpectedly forced me to break my old design tendency of sometimes losing sight of the big picture and drilling deep in particular details. I had to set a clear timeline and stick with it, and focus on getting things done, which helped me focus on solving a business problem not just on the deliverables and making decisive decisions.

What can I steal from the Design Sprint to improve my design process?

Defining problems and goals early in writing and aids with storyboard, and refine as needed along the process.
Use pen & paper sketch skip wire-framing and dive right into low-fi wire flow & prototype.
Communicate the design process with clients when onboarding.

How might we help people find multiple items to decorate their apartment?

THE PROBLEM

House2Home is an e-commerce startup that sells home decor goods. Surveys have revealed that many of their customers have just moved into a new home or apartment. These users want to buy multiple items to personalize their new place, but they don’t feel confident doing it on their own. In this design sprint, I helped House2Home explore solutions to help their customers easily find items to decorate their new place.

Interested in working together?

Drop me a line

Day 4: Prototype