Home Glamour

A mobile home design app

Role: UX Designer, Interaction Designer

Deliverables: business and user research, user journey mapping, digital prototype, concept testing

Platform: mobile

Team: Eszti Hollenback, Alexander Yamato, Martina Dove

Home Glamour

is a concept inspired by the culture of HGTV. Our team has created an app that allows users to be creative and participate in the world of home design and decor without the obstacles of budgets.

The video demonstrates how the user interacts with the home design app. User has a home set up with several rooms, they can design any room in any way.

Our high level observations drawn form initial research:

·      There is a disconnect between reality and the fantasy of the renovation shows,

·      it's important to be self-sufficient,

·      "I value my home and it reflects me"',

·      inspiration motivates to be more creative.

How do we address these insights?

"Home design show nourishes my creative side."

What home design is for people? According to Gram‐Hanssen and Bech‐Danielsen (2004) “The argument is that with the loss of family, class and local community, the individual in late modernity has to organize, plan and secure his or her own life, and the individual has to stage and create his or her own identity.  One way of doing this is obviously by means of interior design, as we know from home-decoration magazines.”

Affinity mapping revealed key insights about users behaviors: viewers under 30 say they watch it to imagine an alternate existence; people seek out design inspiration to spark their own creativity; or people want to reclaim skills that allow them to be self-sufficient like growing their own food.

Affinity map excerpt

Decorating is a way of self-expression.

Our concepts built around expert reviews to address the need of self efficiency with the help of a professional; virtual home, to express creativity even with no budget; hazards and accessibility to help creating cozy and safe home for every needs; tutorials to promote crafts; eco-friendliness for sustainability; budgets to help achieve dreams; and home gnomes for a fun way learning urban gardening.

Though all concepts gained positive reviews, ultimately the concept of virtual house was the one participants unanimously enjoyed.

Concept testing - Home Gnomes

Concept testing - Safe Baby

Concept testing - ProCheck

Concept testing - Virtual House

How might we help our proto persona have a more interactive experience with home design and attain the things that he wants?

The proto persona's, Chad's needs and pain points directed us towards a possible solution. Although he cannot purchase his own home at present, Chad still likes to think about ideas for home renovations he may engage in once he purchases his first home. Decorating his virtual house, using an app that allows users to decorate living spaces with furniture which can be purchased in real life, allows Chad to express his creativity and also to get feedback from friends.

User journey map

Building Home Glamour

Sketching out how I wanted to help Chad to fulfill his budgetless dreams: accommodated features of self-expression, collecting ideas, or social aspects like sharing, giving and getting feedback, but it was also important to provide a chance to build in buying / saving for later the furniture or accessories he is decorating his home with so that leaves the door open for having the dream manifest itself in future.

Home Glamour sketches

Chad's landing page is My Home, each room he has in his home represented by an artboard. While the landing page focuses on the user itself, it offers other options in its bottom navigation like shopping, social feed, articles and videos, and notifications.

Home Glamour concept app

Adding a sofa is only one feature of this user flow. Chad has the possibility to either buy the sofa immediately from the seller, or place a price drop tracking on the item, that will notify him when the price drops and he might find the sofa more affordable.

Screenshots

After decorating the living room with a sofa, user opted for receiving a notification about the price drop as they could not afford it at the original price. Home Glamour sends a notification that the sofa is on sale. User may want to buy the sofa at this price.

Home Glamour price drop notification

Solutions

Following the first-click user testing we needed to rearrange the icons in the top section of our app. The settings icon of a room replaced the profile icon; while we thought users would like to access their profile in order to change settings, users proved us otherwise. We realized that users needed the share icon to publish their room creations and share them with their followers so we removed search icon as it appeared to be secondary, users did not need search option in a specific room the test reflected.  

Iterations after usability testing

Our top left of the app went through 2 iterations as we replaced the logo placeholder with an actual logo, and then received feedback that people didn’t know how to go back, that we needed to add a back button. The logo has been removed.



Next steps

Among future possibilities there are some perspectives for growing the business such as retail partnerships, pay to feature items, commission on items bought through the app, paid editorial articles or paid recommendations. How HGTV can benefit from the app? No forced ads, more satisfied users. HGTV can promote their products and services, and engage users with price notifications. We would conduct more usability testing and introduce a new feature, collaboration.

Collaboration feature would invite creative mindsets to work together on ideas
Other projects: 
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