House2Home – Design Sprint Case Study
Overview:
House2Home is a startup retail site that features home decorations and accessories. They aim to provide their customers, typically those who have recently moved, with a starter kit of products to help decorate their new apartment. Most House2Home products are priced between $10 and $50.
Problem Statement:
While Hourse2Home wanted to provide a starter kit for their customers, they had no way of connecting with each customer and determining each customer’s individual style and budget to serve them the appropriate decorations.
User Profile:
Age: Twenties +
Recently moved to a new place.
Style-conscious, yet uncertain about their style.
On a budget.
Desires:
Quality, Quantity on a budget, and easily found.
Solution:
My solution involves starting with the customer completing an online “Style Survey” where they are shown a series of various objects, interiors, and colors. They then select or reject the items that are displayed. Based on their selections, the customer is assigned a “Style Profile,” and based on that profile, they are shown a curated series of objects. The customer can then set a budget and be presented with a series of “starter kits’ that meet their budget. They can drag and drop items among the kits, and the price will adjust accordingly. After the items are selected, the customer is given the option to view their items in a “Showroom” – an area where they can upload photos of their rooms and see what the items would look like in the room. The items and be dragged around and rotated until a suitable composition is reached. Then, the customer can save the photo in their gallery and shop for other items or check out.
Customer Map:
Competitive Analysis:
After searching online for a similar idea, I found a couple of sites that also offered a screener quiz for determining a person’s personal style, and some even contained features I thought would be important to my design.
Case 1: DZINLY
DZINLY caters to realtors serious about achieving realistic, high-quality designs for their listings from experienced professionals. They provide 3D renderings of houses for Builders, Engineers, and Realtors.
Comments: It features a simple, easy-to-use interface and provides an answer tailored to your style, but with a limited variety of choices, making the experience somewhat unremarkable.
Case 2: HAVENLY
Havenly is an interior design service that matches you with interior designers who will help you create the room of your dreams.
Comments: This quiz was almost exactly like what I envisioned for House2Home. It has a clean, minimal style and lots of images to choose from. The answer provided is robust, providing the user with their main style and adding three similar styles. I like the idea of providing alternatives to just one interior style.
Case 3: Stitch Fix
Stitch Fit is an online retailer that provides you with an online personal stylist who curates a wardrobe for you.
Comments: The Style Quiz is also similar to what I envisioned for House2Home in that it displays text-based questions along with image-based ones. It also displays sales copy along the process. Moreover, I also like how it factors in your budget. It’s a very pleasant experience.
Crazy 8s Exercise:
In order to ideate on the Home Decor Style Quiz, I performed a Crazy 8s exercise that helped me quickly come up with ideas on how I wanted the test experience to look. I followed this by doing a Final Three sketch of what the page before and after my quiz would look like.
Home Decor Style Quiz – Design Sprint Storyboard:
I then generated a quick storyboard of what the entire Home Decor Style Quiz would look like. This served as enough of a guideline to begin work on the prototype.
Prototype Screens:
Usability Testing:
Users were given a task list and then attempted to complete each task.
Task List:
You’re looking to decorate your home, but are unsure what items you want. You have an idea of things you like, but can’t really describe the look. You also have a limited budget and would like to get maximum value for your money. So you visit the House2Home site and are presented with the Home Deco Style Quiz.
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- Take the Home Decor Quiz and find out what your interior decor style is.
- Select, in this order, the Globe, Colored Bottles, and Idol, and add the items to the showroom.
- While the items are in the showroom, upload a photo and add the items to the photo so you can view them in your home.
- Check out with your items.
Test 1:
For my usability testing, I recruited 5 people from various backgrounds to evaluate the prototype. Everyone was able to complete the tasks, though some were confused about adding items to the showroom section, leading me to surmise that more messaging about the showroom process is needed to inform the user of this stage of the process.
Test 2:
I made changes to the introductory copy for the showroom to provide more information about this service to the user. I also added an “Add to showroom” button over the items so that you no longer have to visit the item page itself to add an item to the showroom. I recruited 3 more people, and all were able to complete the task.
Participant Response:
Response to the Home Decor Style Quiz was positive, and participants felt it was a good solution for narrowing the amount of searching for decorations on the site while staying on budget, and they really enjoyed the notion of finding out what their personal style was. They also really liked the notion of being served with curated items – it felt classy.
Conclusion:
Given the very short weeklong time constraints, I think the solution could be taken into a more high-fidelity design phase and would be a novel solution to House2Home’s desire for customer conversion while elevating the brand.
