Timeline
February - May 2022 (12 weeks)
My Role
Sole student project for CareerFoundry UX/UI Bootcamp
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Homeowners wish to make their home decor prettier, but they are struggling because they don’t have knowledge.
TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS
Usability Testing
EMPHASIZE
Getting Insights from potential users directly
I went ahead and conducted two types of research:
• quantitative (user surveys)
• qualitative (user interviews)
Many of homeowners are not satisfied with current decor in their homes. They think of finding interior design experts, but they often fail. “I ask my friends or family for advice, but never experts.” This sparked the question - what if you can ask advice to specialists as if you ask to friends or family!
User Interview: Interviewing 3 Potential Users
• Asked open-ended questions to determine what is the key points for motivating users to hire interior designers.
• Got permission to record conversations to review, transcribe, and synthesize user data.
Overview
Room Expert is an application that connects Interior designers and homeowners. It enables users to find interior designers, directly chat with them, and provides tips for home decor.
PROTOTYPE
Low and Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Keeping Ariana's experience in mind, I sketched various iterations of wireframes. Paper wireframes helped me to illustrate the idea of the 3 main key user tasks.
Task: Find an expert from projects
To identify errors and seek improvements on my wireframes, I conducted usability testing with 6 participants with ages ranging between 30-39. How participants interacted with the prototype were carefully observed - focused how they accomplished the main tasks, or if there were any errors to prevent them doing so.
REFINE
Major improvements
Based on what I discovered from observing users, and feedback from peer reviews,
here are the high level summary of the design changes:
Design Thinking Process
DEFINE
User Persona
From user interviews, I developed 3 personas. The below is the primary persona, Ariana. The goals of our personas informed the design decisions each step of the way.
User Survey: 21 participants took the survey
IDEATE
Card Sorting to Refine the Site Map
of participants haven’t used interior design apps before.
Projects examples and customer reviews are the top 2 factors that would be considered when they choose experts.
Synthesized User Data
I noted valuable insights with post-its and grouped similar user responses into categorized clusters with an affinity map.
Information
Users want advice for particular topics, not entire home coordinate. For example, “does this sofa match with the wall color of my room?”.
Users like to look other people’s room coordinate in pictures or in person.
After the usability tests, I used affinity map and rainbow sheets to find the primary errors and determine the priorities for possible design changes and make tradeoffs.
I conducted an open card sorting test of the content topics and categories using OptimalSort. I’ve recruited five participants between the ages of 30-35 for the test. Then, I reworked sitemap based on the participants’ results.
Participants sorted the cards to 4 groups in average as same number as the original. Though the main categories remained the same, the name of the categories were mended to be clear and easy to understand in the revised sitemap.
Tools
Interactive Prototypes
*The screen can be expanded by a button on the top right.
CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED
What I’d do differently next time.
Do not be scared to make mistakes. In the beginning of the process I was too worried if my design isn’t pretty, it took me time to put my design out on paper/screen. “Done is better than perfect.“ Making mistakes only leads your design better.
Iterate as much as you can. This first project taught me design never be perfect, and there are always room for improvements. Even though I spent so much time on my first high-fidelity mockups, after peer reviews and feedback from my mentor, I changed 60% of my design. It is important to get feedback from early stage, so that I can iterate the design process.
Making small changes can yield big impacts and create a great experience with users. After I created high-fidelity mockup I thought 90% of work are done. It wasn’t true! As I continue learning about design through reading books, looking other designers’ work, and seeing my mockup everyday, new ideas were keep coming up in my head. Be open to growth is the key.
Key Insights
says would find an interior designer if he/she wants to collect inspiration or tips.
My research is guided by 3 goals:
Search
Users want to search with words, such as item names, themes.
Users like to search information that match their needs and wants.
Customization
Users know what they like, but don’t know if that will fit or match their home.
Thank you for scrolling! ✨