Home Depot DIY Concept
prototype
Introduction |
Brief: Home Depot is exploring the addition of a dedicated DIY section to their current mobile phone app to cater to the growing number of DIY enthusiasts in the market.
With this in mind, we took on the project with 3 specific goals in mind based on the brief requirements:
The first was to analyze the existing Home Depot app’s DIY offerings that were coming to the software.
The second was to help understand what users were looking for in a DIY existing users.
And third was to understand what the demographic age group and whether they were rented or owned a home.
Research Methodology |
To lay the groundwork for an effective redesign, our initial step was to establish a comprehensive research strategy. This included three aspects:
(1) Understand what our competitors in the space were doing,
(2) analyze the existing Home Depot mobile app, and
(3) interview 3-5 users who are interested in DIY.
We believed these would help us to accurately identify what type of product would work best for actual users.
heuristic analysis
Evaluated the key issues of the current Home Depot mobile app utilizing Nielsen’s Ten Heuristics to pinpoint specific areas for improvement. This approach helped to identify and address and rank the most critical problems effectively.
User Control.
Consistency
competitor + comparative analysis
The second step in our research process was to do a C+C analysis to better understand our direct competitors and what inspiration we could find from comparative companies in the space as well.
The goal of this step was to better understand the current existing market offerings from competitors and to fid inspiration from comparators on how to incorporate better functionalities to improve the Home Depot DIY user experience.
Competitors: Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, and Tractor Supply Co.
Here we found two aspects: First was the ability to offer a singular place for users to purchase all the materials they would need to complete a DIY project
The second was that only two companies offered a step-by-step guide to walk users through their chosen DIY project
Comparators: IKEA, Michael’s, and HGTV
Here we found that companies offered inspirational content to help give users ideas on different types of DIY projects to try
user interviews
Our team performed six comprehensive user interviews, with our target demographic being a millennial in their mid-twenties to late 30’s who currently live in an apartment in a metropolitan city. The reason for this age group was to better understand how a younger demographic interacted with Home Depot and their interest in the popular social media categories of “innovation and renovation.
1. “I rent an apartment but I still make changes and update the space.”
2. “I prefer to learn from videos on youtube or tiktok when doing a DIY project.”
3. “I prefer to learn from videos on youtube or tiktok when doing a DIY project.”
4. “I prefer to learn from videos on youtube or tiktok when doing a DIY project.”
Major Conclusion: With the current Home Depot app, most of the frustration users have is within the finding the DIY feature stage, researching which project tutorials to use, and purchasing the supplies.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
HOW MIGHT WE STATEMENTS
HMW help users visualize their DIY projects?
HMW help users keep track of the different steps of a DIY project
HMW equally engage new and intermediate DIYers
HMW help users find inspiration for DIY projects?
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Users needs a way to organize his upcoming DIY projects so that he can effectively renovate his apartment
USER FLOW
DESIGN
The primary objective of the redesign was to enhance the centrality of the DIY section within the Home Depot DIY app visual layout with three key goals in mind.
1 | To simplify access + focus on the DIY section but adding it to the main navigation of the app.
2 | To create a streamlined navigation where users were able to access new + existing products, in addition to an intuitive way to discover a project they want to work on.
3 | To make it simple to learn about the steps for a project, materials needed, and the tutorials in a singular place.
wireframes
Building off of the sketches, the goal was to then create a wireframe and extended flow in a mid-fidelity form so that we would be able to test some of the navigation and placement/spacing choices we made.
USABILITY TEST + RECOMMENDATIONS
For the usability test, I utilized the testing platform Maze.co in order to facilitate. The results of the testing phase were successful, with users finding the navigation process and purchasing process simple. In this case, users were asked to purchase the newest copy of the One Piece manga without utilizing the search bar. The results were as follows:
100% of users completed all 5 tasks including direct success finding the new DIY button.
80% of users had difficulty finding the “New projects” button. In the testing version, it was nested under the “Current Projects” tab.
60% of users had issues with the materials page being unclear.
Recommendations
Make “Start New Project” button more visible on the DIY homepage.
Add automatic checkmarks for the materials page
Build out AR feature to help users visualize their DIY projects.
Switch location of the “materials” and “steps” page for navigation.
