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PROJECT

DESIGNED A WEBSITE USING A MODIFIED GV SPRINT APPROACH TO TEST AN INNOVATIVE "DESIGN STARTER KIT" FOR NEW HOMEOWNERS.

SUMMARY

Crafted an e-commerce experience to identify potential customers and offer them opportunities to invest in a water impulsator, improving their health and living conditions.

RESPONSIBILITIES

User Experience

Interface Design

BRAND

This case study aims at documenting the website design for Pure Water that was done as part of my Internship as a user experience and interface design at FutureSight Studios, London UK in first quarter of 2022.

GV Design Sprint Process

House2Home is a modified Google Venture design sprint challenge offered by an organization called Bitesize UX.

OVERVIEW

House2Home is an e-commerce website that sells home furnishings and accessories. Their main goal is to assist users who are looking for a Starter Kit which includes multiple home decor products and accessories to help them design and personalize their new apartments or houses within a budget.

This project uses a modified GV sprint approach to design and test an upfront "Design Starter Kit" decor options to help users find products that add style to their new house with only a few clicks.

THE PROBLEM

Through user surveys and interviews House2Home has discovered that the majority of the targeted audience are looking for an affordable and impactful artifacts for their new space. The customers know the look and feel they want to achieve, but they're overwhelmed piecing it together from various e-commerce websites and they give up out of fear of not achieving the look and feel they desire.

THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE

House2Home sees an opportunity to help their customers finding a Starter Kit of home decor for their new space. In order to help users find a custom kit, I focused on providing decor kits based on the mood and style they are looking for. The kits have been categorized by each individual trending decor style to save customers time and ensure that the new space's general motif is cohesive, beautiful and symmetrical.

What do I need to do at first?

I started with a simple 'purchase a starter kit' prompt:

Consider a desktop app that enables you to impulsively identify and buy a starter kit of home decor or accessories for your new home on the spur of the moment. I created an end-to-end design flow that encompassed the entire experience ,from the moment of exploration to purchase completion.

How Might We (HMW) Questions

Synthesizing the user research, I arrived at the following HMW questions -

... offer customers simple and quick facelifts for their new place.

... assist consumers in locating a piece of decor that strikes a balance between quality, quantity, and price.

... help users achieve a themed aesthetic in their space.

... help users recreate the look they desire?

... help users shop decor that reflects their personality?

MAPPING

Based on the research and insights, I was able to map out end-to-end user flow that will allow me to evaluate the most effective way to meet customers needs. I outlined different steps that can help them in achieving the style and feel they are looking for their new space, with easy access and simple involvement for the whole shopping experience.

The app had two major user maps. A User of House2Home would:

Launch the web app upon spotting something they wish to discover
Interact and browse all the available products
Discover a starter kit that they like
Explore the curated kit and browse products
Add items to the cart they want
Proceed to the checkout process, if the user hasn't already done so, they can set up their profile providing personal and payment information when making their first purchase.
Continue shopping

A second user map was that for a new user would:

Launch the web app.
Create a new account, set up password.
Save their account information, such as shipping and billing address, payment information etc for quick checkout.

Alternatively, users can continue as guest checkout, which will not keep any of their personal information and may result in them missing out on promotions and offers.

THE CRAZY 8'S

The next step was to pick the most critical screen from Mapping exercises and create 8 quick sketches in 8 minutes to ideate various iteration of this screen. These sketches helped me explore solution based in much of the inspiration from 'Lightning Demos'.

INSPIRATION AKA LIGHTING DEMO

Next, much like the experts at GV suggest, I started to go through several existing home decor websites to find most useful interactions that will inspire House2Home experience. This included websites like Wayfair, Burrow and Anthropologie.

I sketched out few inspirations from these websites. I was motivated to design a better solution for House2Home customers because of the interactive and user friendly flow and engagement with the products.

THE SOLUTION

LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

After creating potential solution sketches, I added few more screens to my Wireflows before moving on to creating my final prototype design. It was important that the user had a clear indication of where to look for different kit styles in order to buy a personalized set of decor for their new space. For a quick and straight forward approach, I chose to add larger displays of each decor kit on the launch screen.

Converting these wireframes to High Fidelity Screens by adding visual design elements was the next step.

HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

After testing a low-fidelity prototype with five people, I spent the next day building a high-fidelity prototype of the House2Home webapp, which helps customers save time choosing curated decor for their space.

SOME OF THE KEY FEATURES THAT WERE ADDED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM -

1. CURATED SPACES TO SHOP DECOR

A new user is onboarded on the webapp with a recommended curated decor kit. This is done to tailor their shopping experience and shop the presented kit in order to save time browsing and make checkout easier.

2. FILTERING SEARCHES AND NAVIGATION

This was one of the key feature that a user would come across while searching for decor by category. The user can choose from a variety of categories and customize their kit. This will enable them to swiftly narrow down their searches and choose the best appropriate product.

This was one of the important feature that a user would come across while looking for decor through categories. The user can access categories and customize their kit. This will allow them to quickly filter out their searches and look for the most suitable product.

3. DIRECT CHECKOUT

One of the primary aspects was the direct checkout method and quick add to cart option for the products. Users will be able to easily add products to their carts and get an updated order summary on the dashboard, allowing them to make changes to their carts on the checkout page. The entire concept of single-page checkout is to shorten the checkout procedure.

FINAL PROTOTYPE

Access clickable high-fidelity prototype in a new window

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE TEST

Among friends and peers, I interviewed five people. Two of the participants have a background in interior design, so learning about their experiences while interacting with the website was a great way to understand more about them. All of the tasks were completed successfully by 3/5 of the participants. One of the participants was looking for a search bar to help him find things quickly. The second participant was unaware of the hamburger menu, which allows customers to shop for various decor types.

1. Search Box

Search bar was a really important function for my site and should be displayed prominently, as it can be the fastest route to discovery for users. I missed this function while ideating the wireframes and learned that one of the participants were looking for a content that they couldn’t find. Thus, place a search box in the upper-right or upper-center area of your layout and you’ll be sure that your users will find it where they expect it to be.

2. Hamburger Menu

I wanted a clean and minimal aesthetics for the website and I chose to have a hamburger menu instead of top navigation bar since I only wanted users to focus on basic element required for the functionality. As a eCommerce platform the website has products that fall into a dozen or more categories, I wanted the shoppers to be able to easily find the ones they’re interested in. A hamburger menu gives a way to make sure visitors can find the full list of categories.

WHAT NEEDED TO BE TESTED?

The last day of the sprint focused on testing the finished prottotype with 5 targeted participants. The usability test script was as follows -

HOW WAS THE SPRINT

The 5 days GV sprint was a effective way to come up with ideas and validate them in a time-effective manner. The process helped me design a solution for the problem at hand efficiently and undertake the entire design process within a week’s time.

In addition to the solution, I would suggest working and building the following:

Design a curated space to let users personalize their home decor by allowing them to add/remove items for the kit.
Create additional product search features.
- (ie. offer gift registry, add items to wishlist/save for later and quick checkout process using apple wallet and ID.)
Create order tracking tool

Kunal Sheth