House2Home

Modified Google Venture UX/UI Design Sprint

Role: Independent UX/UI Designer

As part of my UX/UI bootcamp, I was given a few design challenge briefs to choose from, and ultimately chose the House2Home design challenge. My task was to read the design brief and execute a 5-day design sprint to test a solution to the research problem. I was given background on the company, a color palette and font, a snapshot of the home page, research highlights, and the following design constraints:
- Designed as a website for larger screens
- Focus is on users that want a “starter kit” of multiple products to decorate a new apartment
- $10-$50 decorative products and accessories only - no large pieces
- E-commerce website that sells small home decor products and accessories
- Through customer surveys, they’ve found many of their customers have just moved into a new apartment and want to buy multiple items to personalize their new space, but don’t feel confident doing it on their own
- They see an opportunity to provide people with a “starter kit” of items to instantly decorate their new place
- I was brought on to run a modified 5-day Google Ventures design sprint to quickly test out a possible solution
- Customers feel overwhelmed when it comes to decorating their new homes/apartments
- Even if they have an idea of what they like, they find it difficult to bring that idea to life and are unsure how everything will look all together in their own home
- Staying within a budget is a main concern, and they struggle to find the balance between cost and getting the look they’re going for
The starter kit design tool uses AI technology to enable customers to see curated products in a simulated image of their room.
Customers upload a video of the room they would like to style, enter the dimensions of the room, their design style, and their budget, and the design tool curates specific pieces tailored for them and shown in their room.

Day 1:

Understand

| Empathize & Define |

Design Sprint Process

Day 2:

Sketch

| Ideation |

Day 3:

Storyboard

| End-to-End User Flow |

Day 4:

Prototype

| Mockups |

Day 5:

Test

| Validate |

Day 1: Understand

Research

House2Home conducted user research using the following prompt, then provided highlights from that research.

Research

Identify Themes

Map UX

“Tell us about a time you shopped for items to decorate your new home or apartment”

"I moved into a new apartment and it was sooo empty, so I wanted to buy some stuff to make it a little more stylish. I knew I needed a few things, but it was hard trying to stick to a budget"

Maria
"I find lots of cool little items that I like, but I never know if they'll all look good together in the same room until I buy them. Usually, I get overwhelmed and end up not buying anything."

Dan
"I'll admit - I want my place to look good, but I never enjoy searching for decorations or items. I'm not super picky about specific items, so spending time searching for stuff just gets tirin."

Ron
"I do a lot of searching and saving on Pinterest. -but the photos are usually of full rooms that I like the look of. For example, I'll see a room with a beach-house theme and save it...but once it comes down to buying stuff for my place, it's hard for me to pick out the right items."

Renata

Themes

From the research conducted by House2Home, I was able to identify the following themes and map out a possible end-to-end user experience for the persona provided to solve these issues: