HOUSE2HOME
GV Design Sprint
Case Study
DAY 1
Mapping
Overview The Problem The Solution
House2Home is an e-commerce website that sells home decor items & accessories. They help customers to bring their personalities to a new place. To make the new home cozy and special.
During customer survey, House2Home find out that most of their users just moved to their new apartments or house and want to decorate them but don’t feel confident doing it on their own.
Give customers an apportunity to find the best “starter kit“ to decorate their new place based on their own preferences.
My Role Sprint Plan
My role as UX/UI Designer was to quickly create and test a possible solution to this problem.
Day 1: Understand
Day 2: Ideate
Day 3: Decide
Day 4: Prototype
Day 5: Test
PERSONA
Ally, 23 y.o., Chicago, IL
Behavior
Ally just moved into her first apartment after graduation;
She lives in a small studio in Chicago;
Ally browses Pinterest for decoration ideas for small bright spaces;
She tries to find the right decor but quickly becomes overwhelmed and puts it off for later.
Frustrations
She doesn’t know what kind of decor items she needs to buy in order to achieve the result she wants;
She doesn’t want (or doesn’t allowed) to make big changes to her apartment (like painting or renovation);
She can only afford to buy a few small decor items;
She doesn’t know how the decor she likes will look like in her apartment.
Goals
Ally wants to give a quick “facelift“ to her apartment, without needing to shop for lots of individual items;
Ally wants to find decorative items in her budget that will give her apartment the look and feel she wants.
User Insights
Ally needs the inspiration to imagine what her room would look like;
Finding the right decor usually takes too long;
She knows how she wants her room to look and feel;
She has a limited budget so she cannot buy herself a lot of decors.
Solution Map
To begin, I sketched out the quick solution idea, to visualize the process of finding a starter kit from start to finish. This map shows exactly what steps the user will take when getting to the site to achieve his or her goal.
DAY 2
Lighting Demo, Crazy 8
During Lighting Demo Stage I spent 30 min to find inspiration searching for websites with similar functions. Based on my requests, I choosed the websites Havenly, Houzz, Wayfair.
LIGHTING DEMO
I liked that Havenly allows users to choose a pre-build package and the design of the site is simple and straightforward. Wayfair is a big
e-commerce site that has a great layout and a well-organized quick view function with filters. Houzz has a clear and simple layout that users can understand.
CRAZY 8’s
Using the crazy 8’s method, I developed 8 options for the organization of the home page, which will be placed starter kits options so that the user can choose the most suitable for him. My goal is to make this page clear and intuitive so that the user can quickly make a decision and choose the option they want.
DAY 3
Decide
At this stage, I decided how user flow will look. I made a storyboard with the final sketches. First, I chose from the 8 options that I created using the сrazy 8’s method the most appropriate version of the main page. And based on that I created a Storyboard, which shows the path that the user will take from the moment when he gets to the home page and finds there the desired starter kit until he buys the product. The sketches contain a homepage, a page with filters, where you can customize the starter kit and checkout.
DAY 4
Prototype
This high-fidelity prototype shows the view of the user flow when one of the starter kits is selected. My concept was to offer starter pack options to users based on their budget and preferences. I also allow users to customize the already selected set. My goal was to simplify the process of finding a decor by offering pre-build design solutions with the ability to customize for yourself if necessary. And also add the function to see in your room or see how this starter kit looks in the interior from other customers.
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
DAY 5
Testing
I recruit 3 participants from Facebook and 2 from the slack channel. I sent the link to InVision and see how they are interacting with the prototype. All interviews I conducted remotely through Zoom.
Task Issues Recommendations
Go to the website. Choose Boho-Chic starter kit and go to checkout.
No “Home” button on the header menu, it is confusing.
Only one page shows the user path (home>costumize).
The site shows the item in the cart when it is already at the checkout stage.
Add the “Home” button to all screens.
Add a user path on all screens up to the checkout.
Remove the “item in the cart” icon on checkout pages.
FINAL PROTOTYPES
In my final prototype, I took all participants comments into account and implemented them to make the design even clearer and more accessible to users.
CONCLUSION
Working within a specific time frame was a challenge for me, but it taught me how to allocate time appropriately to meet deadlines. The Сrazy 8’s method helped me get creative and focus on ideas in a short amount of time. Overall, it was a good experience that taught me how to work on a sharp deadline and successfully deliver prototypes for the website that helps people choose the best “starter kit” to decorate their apartment.