House2Home is a fictitious startup that primarily sells home decor items and decorations under $50. They want to provide an easy way for people to decorate their new apartments or homes on a budget.
Once settled into a new apartment, customers are faced with the challenge of making it their own by decorating. With the vast amount of advice available, the process can quickly get overwhelming and expensive.
Help users on a budget create and purchase room decor “starter kits” based on the color attributes of their spaces.
I identified the problem and defined the user. From here I reframed the main pain points as a “How might we” question and mapped out a possible solution.
Ikea has a VR feature that allows you to view items in the context of the room. They even scaled based on the positioning of the room perspective and items could be rotated.
I had an idea of creating room packages based on complimentary colors of existing furniture so I reviewed Adobe Color to gain an understanding of how they generate combinations.
I felt that Rooms To Go would be similar to my existing problem. It turned out to use a more traditional straight forward approach to purchasing pre-packaged room decorum.
I identified the most critical step the user would take from the user map and quickly sketched 8 ideas from it. The section I focused on was when item suggestions were generated from the room’s color scheme.
Ideas ranged from showing themed packages with items broken out, to comparing color swatches. I chose the bottom right image to focus on: It includes a list of product thumbnail images that can be displayed within the context of her room.
Having the room as the main feature on the screen, ensured that the suggested items were relevant to it. Items grouped as starter packages allow Karen to swap items in and out of it.
User uploads the room pic and a choice of 2 color pallets are generated from it based on complimentary colors.
Users can design their space based on the chosen color scheme. Items are shown in a list and can be added to the room by drag and drop. A package is prepared on the side with the ability to swap items out. This can be added to a cart.
User verifies the order, then provides payment and shipping to complete transaction.
After a competitive analysis and ideation, I sketched out the screen of the most important action a user would take. The screen before and after it completed the action of selecting a room package.
To complete the 6 panel storyboard, these 3 screens precede the selection/checkout process above.
1. User arrives at the home page. Since the Room package is a new service, it is handled as a hero image.
Clicking “Shop Now” leads you to a landing page explaining the process. *This page was removed due to similarity of previous page.
User is prompted to upload their own pic. If they don’t have any furniture yet they can pick a theme and start from an empty room
The storyboard completes the red route a user would take to complete the process of selecting a decoration package, based on the color scheme of their uploaded picture. They can choose from 2 or 3 themes which coordinate with the uploaded image.
I tested the prototype with 5 people to see if it was a simple and useful shopping process. I wanted to be sure participants understood the color matching feature in order to fine-tune accessory combinations.
-Jeff H.
arrive at the color swatch screen and would not know what to do next.
attempted to select individual colors from the swatch pallette instead of the entire swatch.
saw selecting decor packages matched by room theme as an easier way to shop
By addressing the pain points outlined above I would refine the route for a smoother experience by:
While there were some known usability issues going in, such as the drag and drop feature when uploading a room shot, 4 of 5 users loved the idea of product packages based on their room color scheme. This confirmed that this design direction is well worth pursuing.
