When the pandemic hit, I moved to a new city. After binge-watching all of Queer Eye, my partner and I decided to renovate our bedroom.
Hiring a designer seemed pricey and the overall renovation project promised to be fun. It took us 3 long, exhausting months filled with a mixture of joy and self-doubt to complete it.
Was there a better way? Here’s a case study where I tried to figure it out as a project for my UX design bootcamp course.
In 2020, the data showed an increased demand for home improvement projects. Though people admit that they struggle with renovating their homes by themselves, they tend to not involve interior designers mostly to avoid high designer fees.
An app that connects people with interior designers to remodel their spaces in affordable ways.
Research
Visual design
Prototyping
User testing
Figma
UsabilityHub
OptimalSort
Google Forms
2021
Hypothetical, as part of the CareerFoundry course
- 5-minute survey;
- 25 respondents;
- People who renovated or are planning to renovate their homes.
- 30-45 minute interviews;
- 3 respondents;
- People who renovated their homes within last 12 months.
To showcase the app, 3 user flows were created:
1
Style quiz helps people to determine their design preferences and style.
2
Designers can be filtered by design style and availability.
3
Room profile page asks for information about the room to be remodeled.
This storyboard explores a journey of discovering the These4Walls services by Sarah, who recently moved into a new apartment with her partner, David.
Having done some renovation projects in the past, they consider delegating remodeling their kitchen to an interior designer.
6 participants who have experience in renovating, have plans to renovate their spaces, or are generally interested in interior design were recruited for usability testing.
The feedback on the prototype was mostly positive. Participants liked the website’s concept and aesthetics, its features, and UI.
Care to try out the prototype?
It‘s possible to build a competitive web app that offers affordable interior design solutions. The key is an enjoyable user experience that creates a safe space for people to entrust their homes to design experts.
People are skeptical to pay for interior design services, so it’s important to gain their trust by giving sufficient information about the designers (such as previous projects, reviews), and design deliverables.
As for myself, the project provided a great opportunity to learn new tools and enhance my user research skillset.
The project had a well-defined scope since it was done as part of a UX design bootcamp course.
In real life, there would be a number of potential next steps to refine the quality of research and to improve the design.
I would conduct interviews with
- people who hired interior designers to learn about their experience;
- freelance designers to inform the design of the UX for interior designers’ accounts;
- former employees & designers working for competitor platforms to understand their design and business processes.
I would also conduct mystery shopping of the competitor platforms by buying their design packages to see how their services work and what could be improved.
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