House 2 Home
House 2 Home is an e-commerce start-up that provides customers with decor kits to easily transform their new house into a place to call home.
Challenge Brief
As part of my Springboard curriculum, I completed a five day design sprint using Bitesize UX; working as a team with a mentor and student advisor each day for the different challenges.
Using core concepts of Lean UX alongside Agile Development, this project allowed for rapid, iterative cycles to ensure generated data could be used in each iteration. Focused on the Minimal Viable Product (MVP), the result was the simplest and cheapest working version of a product.
Overview
House2Home (H2H) is a new startup that wants to make it easier for people to decorate their new homes or apartments.
H2H is an e-commerce website that sells home decor items and accessories. Some of their most popular items are prints, posters, framed photos, lighting, and other small accent pieces and accessories.
Tools
Figma
Micro
Sketch
Team
1 UX designer
1 Capstone Mentor
1 Student Advisor
Timeline
Overall: 1 week sprint
Discovery & Research: 2+ Days
Design & Testing: 2+ Days
My Role
UX Designer
UX Research
Workshop Facilitator
My Design Process
Day 1: Map
User Pain Points
Personas
Day 2: Sketch
Lighting Demos
Cort Furniture
Big Idea: Furniture packages with preselected items based on home size, separated by style types with an ability to customize based on budget.
IKEA Custom Closets
Big Idea: Customization opinion. Users start with a “base frame” that can be customized through various interior layouts. This could also work with picking a base style package which could then be customized with individual decor items within that style type.
Feather Furniture Rentals
Big Idea: A style quiz which helps the product’s virtual designer preselect furniture and decor items from their inventory. This also presents an opportunity to educate users on industry-specific style vernacular.
User Flow
With the business goal in mind, I made sure that users reached the checkout screen smoothly. Sketching the current-state user journey map helped me to identify opportunities for improvement, revealing that Space, Style, and Budget were the three driving factors for users. By eliminating unnecessary steps and potential drop-off points from outside these three factors, I ended up with a much faster checkout experience, contributing to higher conversion rates.
Crazy 8
With the MVP in mind, I conducted a “Crazy 8” sketch the focused on designing for the goals layout in the User Flow and Lighting Demos.
Because of the H2H kit composition, option 3 was the most concise and direct route in getting to the three main objectives (space, style, and budget) from user interviews.
Solution Sketches
Day 3: Decide
I created a storyboard that shows how a user would set up a decor kit for a whole home design of a one-bedroom apartment.
Storyboard
Day 4: Prototype
The purpose of this prototype is to:
Test the red route of a user wishing to create a decor kit with House 2 Home.
Get feedback on overall site design, layout, flow, UI elements, and branding.
Day 5: Test
User Interviews
I conducted interviews and prototype testing with a diverse group of five users. This group included individuals of varying genders, aged between 25 and 45 years, all employed and university-educated. Each participant had recently relocated to a new apartment or home within the past 12 months
All users expressed enthusiastic interest in the product and indicated a strong desire to use it. While assembling their kits, they noted that there were more steps involved than anticipated. However, they also emphasized that each step was equally crucial to them for various reasons.
Overall, every user was able to complete their decor kit without any prompts from the tester, each expressing that the site design and flow were extremely intuitive.
UI Design
After resolving usability issues, I proceeded to design the final screens using Figma. My objective was to establish a visual identity that resonates with the brand’s core values and message: “Turning Houses into Homes”. Additionally, I conducted a thorough review of competitors and delved into my collection of references to draw inspiration.
Next Steps
If I were to continue this project, I would spend more time flushing out the UI aspects of this product. I think UI is crucial in e-commerce products.
This product has the potential to address a challenge many people face. I would love to explore how AI might help in selecting items for the decor kits.
I would love to be able to test this design further as well as do more extensive research on user behavior with home design e-commerce products.
Learn
Lean UX Lessons
Customer-Centric Design: Focused on user needs and validates hypotheses with real feedback using tools like personas and journey maps.
Rapid Prototyping: Created low-fidelity prototypes for quick testing and iteration, using wireframes and mockups.
Hypothesis-Driven Development: Formulated and tested hypotheses about user behavior, using metrics and data to guide decisions.
Agile Development Lessons
Incremental Development: Developed in small, manageable increments for frequent releases and continuous improvement.
Embraced Change: Welcomed changing requirements, adapting quickly based on feedback through sprint reviews and retrospectives.
Empowered Teams: Encouraged self-organizing teams with autonomy to make decisions and manage their work.
Continuous Delivery: Implemented CI/CD practices for a deployable product state, using automated testing and deployment.
Value Delivery: Prioritized work based on value to the customer, using backlog grooming and prioritization frameworks.
Conclusion
By blending the principles of Lean UX and Agile Development, this sprint allowed me to create a product that is not only functional and well-built but also deeply resonant with users' needs and preferences.
