Layouts
Project brief
D U R A T I O N
1 week
Y E A R
2024
Designing a social platform to help homeowners and interior design enthusiasts share and find inspiration.
This project aims to seamlessly integrate a marketplace with an online forum where creatives and homeowners can design, explore, and collaborate on home improvement ideas. The tool will provide a seamless transition from ideation to purchase, ensuring efficient and meaningful decision-making in home decor.
S K I L L S
UI/ UX design
Prototyping
T O O L S
Figma
FigJam
Adobe Illustrator
T E A M
Self
As an architect, I spend a lot of time on home improvement forums and watching short-form videos on home decorating. I've observed the active participation of people on platforms like Reddit and YouTube, where they comment to share ideas. However, this process is arduous and doesn't offer any long-term benefits. I want to build on these interactions; to make them more seamless and enjoyable.
Context
Community Forum
Users can easily gain inspiration by looking at the trending posts or by searching tags.
Each post includes a "discover" section where users can see design ideas from other creators and easily find links to various products.
Personalized catalog
Users have the ability to access all their saved posts and furniture links from a single page
Product library
Users can imagine various products in the same area, utilizing a collection of product “stickers” sourced from multiple websites.
option to search for products using color coded tags provided by the creator of the post.
Option to swipe, remove and replace products makes placing image stickers easier
Making Edits
Enlarge, flip, and undo/redo options allows for the placement of small product stickers with greater ease
Creating a post
Users can modify the original post of other users by applying product stickers to illustrate their concepts and share these edits with product links.
Users can ask for design ideas on the community page by creating new posts. They can share a photo, add tags and a description, and even create a poll by posting different versions of their own design using creator mode.
Interaction Design
In order to validate my hypothesis, I spoke to 8 young-urban professionals who rent out apartments and reviewed posts and comments across multiple platforms such as reddit and YouTube. The findings were with respect to their process of discovering and choosing pieces to own and their motivation behind doing so.
1.Difficulty in visualizing what furniture pieces go together.
2. Need help in choosing and making better purchases.
3. Can’t find or save products posted by others on their Pinterest or Instagram account.
4. Have gained useful insights from others sharing their opinions online.
5. Can’t seem to elevate the space even after buying new furniture. Lack of confidence in doing it alone.
Homeowners & Renters
With countless choices, decision-making can feel overwhelming, and hiring a professional is often too expensive for smaller tasks.
Similar Interfaces
Designers & Creatives
Its overwhelming to pick for all the choices, its expansive to hire someone
Brands & Business
Want to increase product discovery, customer reach and sales by leveraging social media
User Research
By pinpointing moments of decision-making and the emotions associated with them, I was able to define the project objectives and sketch out a user flow incorporating the different design features.
Journey Mapping
Ideation
UI Preview
Reflections
In this project, I creatively explored various digital interactions and the possibility of integrating community engagement to facilitate better online purchases. Designers often create problems where none exist, designing features and dictating how people should achieve their goals. Certain aspects of this project had me questing this. However, this realization taught me to give ample time to help prioritize defining the correct problem statement through extensive research and collaborative ideation.
Incorporating e-commerce elements into a platform requires understanding the needs of all stakeholders and comprehending the business model. This knowledge is crucial in devising solutions that effectively balance strategy, sustainability, and long-term engagement.