Role
UX Design
Wireframing
UI Design
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Tools
Figjam
Figma
Notion
Timeline
1 Week
Team
Solo
The Problem
How might we improve the experience of finding the perfect home?
The Solution
Provide users the ability to create and share a favorite list and create a function that allows users to see how a piece of furniture will look within the AR space.
Research
Understand the Users
I wanted to understand what people are looking for and the frustrations they have during their for the perfect listing. Given the timeline, I was only able to interview 3 of my friends that were looking at listings at that time. These were my insights
Keeping organize
Users usually had a way to organize their listings through keeping a list physically or digitally.
Look at this!
Users are always looking to get a second opinion, whether from another individual they are rooming with or an outside perspective such as a parent.
What can I bring?
Users usually find themselves wondering what furniture they are able to bring due to size constraints and not knowing the actual sizes of rooms.
Competitor Benchmarking
After the interviews, I conducted competitor benchmarking to understand what other companies are doing.
What I Found
Favorites
Users have the ability to add a listing to a favorite list to easily find places they've found.
Create/Share List
It is common for users to be able to share lists, but uncommon for users to share a list that people are able to collaborate in.
Space
Though the size of the space or item is provided, it can be difficult to picture the actual length when planning.
Humanizing the data
Nathan Cruz
25 Years Old | Single
Toronto, Ontario
Motivation
Nathan is moving downtown to live closer to his work office. As a young adult, he wants to save money by utilizing his already owned furniture. He also likes to get his friend's opinions.
Frustration
- No way to organize possible placements
- Having to spend time going to each listing to figure out the spacing
Ideation
To ideate, I did a crazy 8's (or 6's in this case) to quickly figure out what ideas I can come up with. I really wanted to stay within the concept of 3DApartment by trying to come up with ways to utilize AR to solve these problems. I wasn't able to ideate much on how to organize listing or sharing, but I was able to come up with more ideas for figuring out what furniture a user can bring.
User Flow
To understand what the users would interact with I created a user flow . Time constraint also limited on what I can work on. I decided to not expand on the sharing capability as I wanted to explore/expand more on importing furniture into a listing. Keeping the adding to favorites flow also helped with maintaining a flow.
Rapid Prototyping
With the key features defined, I began to envision ideas by sketching low-fidelity frames on Figma that were inspired by Rental.ca and Realtor.com.
Solution
Below is an example of how I took our low fid wire frame and took it through mid-fidelity, and ultimately high-fidelity and bring a functional prototype.
Account
I utilized the design and brand of the company since I wasn't doing a rebranding. Users will have to log in so that there’s a database to save all their lists and activities. An overlay was utilized over a new page to minimize the amount of distraction during a user’s search for a listing.
Favorites
Users can add to an existing favorites list or create a new one. On the favorite’s page, there’s a suggestion section to assist users with their search. Users can also share their lists with other individuals.
Furniture
This feature is added to help users understand how a piece of furniture will look and fit within the listing’s space. Users can also interact with the listing to move or simply see the exact size.
Usability Testing & Learnings
To ensure the usability of my design, I went back to my interviewees and provided some tasks. Here were my takeaways that I found were really interesting:
- rather than tapping to import, user’s tried to drag and drop the furniture
- when deleting, users interacted with the furniture in the 3D space expecting a delete option
To push the prototype further, I would explore…
1. The sharing feature and a way to get other users to interact with the list such they can provide insights or other possible listings
2. An inventory list of all the furniture the user would like to utilize
3. Mobile app would be interesting as a user would have access to a camera therefore it would be possible to scan an object and import it into their account’s furniture list
Reflection
As this was my first ever case study and design challenge, I went in very optimistic. With no prior knowledge of Figma and design systems, the high fidelity and prototyping took longer than expected. This fact was emphasized greatly as I tried to create everything from scratch. You know what they say, don't reinvent the wheel. It was also really interesting to witness how people interacted with your product because it helps see the different ways an actual person uses it.