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This Design Sprint is a modified version of the Google Ventures 5 day design sprint.

House2Home is an e-commerce website that sells home decor items and accessories. Through customer surveys, House2Home has discovered that many of their customer base have just moved into a new home or apartment. These users want to buy multiple items to personalize their new place but, they don’t feel confident doing it on their own.

House2Home sees an opportunity to help people find a great “starter kit” of items to instantly decorate their new place by using a quick quiz to help users hone in on their personal style and select decor items that make an impact and work with their current home inventory.

My goal, as the UX designer is to construct the website in order to direct the user to the style quiz that will help the user quickly and effectively find items according to their style.

DAY 1: Mapping

The first day of a design sprint is typically dedicated to reviewing the existing research on the problem and mapping out the steps a user would take while using your project to achieve their goal.

The problem I am trying to solve is that of people who are not sure how to style their home on a budget. Upon examining the research that was provided, it was apparent most people were having trouble with cohesiveness and making an impact with their current budget. Our users are in search of suggestions on actual decor items that will work together in their unique space AND won't break the bank. Ideally, we would be their interior designer, taking all of their pain points and individual style in consideration when recommending items according to each client’s distinction. But, we will begin by offering a tool to hone in on their personal taste with a style quiz that also aids in filtering further for the number of pieces needed, within the confines of each patron’s budget.

DAY 2: Sketching

Lightning demo research and inspirations:

  • Website offers blog posts of home style inspirations. (image 2)

  • Photos of different home aesthetics. (image 3)

  • Options to drag and drop items into a photo (image 4)

  • clickable items within a photo (image 4)

  • Small space decor inspiration photos (image 1 & 2)

This screen was selected as the most critical screen because the most important problem and solution was to help users feel assured in their selections by helping them see their selections in their space.

image 4

image 2

Sketches:

Crazy 8 challenge:

image 3

A fast sketching exercise to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes.

image 1

Madison just moved into her very own small apartment…

While browsing on Pinterest for inspiration, she sees an ad for a home decor website that a friend had mentioned.

After the quiz she’s able to see the items she had selected in the photo she uploaded of her own space!

Madison looked at her bare boring apartment and decided she wanted to make it her style.

Conveniently, she had found the style quiz on the House2Home website!

Madison promptly purchased several pieces from House2Home.

Within 3-5 days, the items arrived at her doorstep.

She makes her way through the quiz, selecting the options that correlate with her and her space.

Madison is very satisfied because she already knows everything will look great in her new apartment and there’s no need to make returns!

DAY 3: Decide

I decided to proceed with the idea of using a quiz to help the user hone in on their personal style while also filtering the number of items, colors, budget, etc.. The critical screen is a way to asses the effectiveness of the quiz. From the home page of the website, the users are influenced to click and use the style quiz (“Find your style”) that helps the website’s algorithm utilize the results of the quiz in order to introduce the user to items they are looking for.

The storyboard process depicts a scenario in which a user may find
opportunity to use the House2Home website.

The below screens are a prototype of the home decor website designed to guide the user to a helpful quiz to hone in on the user’s personal style. This quiz suggests items according to the user’s quiz selections. 

The layout of each frame is somewhat similar to the sketch with few minor adjustments such as the addition of colors and font styles. Placement, shape, and size of elements within the page slightly differ from the sketches but general intention and functions remained. Information and photos of items have been repeated for time’s sake.

DAY 4: Prototype

DAY 5: Test

On day 5 I tested my prototype with five participants that fit the criteria of the target demographic for House2Home. Testing and interviews were conducted at various times either at my personal home or at the home of the participant. All participants were between the ages of 25-35. 2 of the 5 participants were single and living on their own at a small apartment, another 2 two lived in apartments but with a partner and 1 participant owned a small home and lived on her own. All participants declared themselves the primary decorator of their home. 

I used the same prompt with all of the participants: “Use this website to purchase items according to your taste.”. I informed them that as this is a prototype, some items are clickable and some are not. I encouraged them to speak aloud their thoughts while working through the prototype and to use their imagination on non functional aspects, as this is a prototype. I gave no further instructions once the test started and observed each participant sitting next to them.

 Overall, the findings from the testing and interviews were satisfactory but also revealed many areas for adjustments. The participants had no trouble working through the quiz and finding the quiz. None of the participants spoke anything aloud during the test. Afterward, nearly all said it was pretty self explanatory. It was clear that most did not click on the items given from left to right as intended for the prototype. One participant did not click on the individual items at all. One participant, though she also stated that the process was easy and self explanatory, said more instruction could be given to further clarify possible options as far as ability to click/select individual items based on personal preference.

Testing and interview notes:

  • Aelya, Siwon, Jeong, Emma, Ruth

  • “Use this website to purchase items according to your taste.

    You will be able to click on some things and some things will not be clickable.. Give it a try and if something is not clickable, the screen will highlight the areas that you can click on. Some functions and toggles are meant to work but as this is a prototype, please use your imagination for the purpose of this test. Feel free to speak aloud your thoughts while going through the process. I will give you no further instructions when you begin. Any questions?”

    • Why did you click on the ‘style quiz’ instead of the “Find your Style” button?

    • What prompted you to click on the “Find your Style” button first?

    • How did you find the process of purchasing items according to your taste?

    • At any point did you feel unsure about what to do or where to go next?

    • Clickable items don’t seem obvious.

    • A couple of the participants scrolled (naturally) in the opposite direction than my personal computer (which was used for the testing) was set up.

    • Most are not selecting items and may need further instructions.

    • Users are not clicking from left to right on the items (as intended for prototype)

    • All users went through the quiz with no problem and no questions. Found the process of “Finding your style” and getting to the cart straight forward and easy.

    • None of the participants had any thoughts to voice during the testing.

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