Helping DIYers Feel More Prepared

Overview:

Home Depot is a home improvement franchise founded in 1978, and today is the world’s largest home improvement store with 2200 stores worldwide, and 110.2 Billion in sales in 2019. 35% of Home Depot’s net sales are in elctrical, DIY, plumbing, and kitchen products.

I am adding a feature to their mobile app which is primarily based around commerce. However, they do have a section related to DIY. I wanted to add a feature that would help DIYers possibly do more projects, and as a result buy more items from Home depot.

Challenge:

Add a feature to the Home Depot mobile app that will help DIYers during their process

Timeframe

Ongoing

Role

Remote UX/UI Designer

Process

Research - Competitor Analysis, User Survey, User Interviews
Synthesis - Empathy Map, Persona
Ideate - Sitemap, User Flow, Wireframes, Prototyping
Test/Iterate - User Testing

Research

Competitive Analysis

Before starting the user research I wanted to get an idea of some of Home Depot’s direct and indirect competitors. Therefore I decided to start with competitive analysis to see how their standing in the DIY space stands in comparison to their competitors

Seeing what users had to say

I wanted to find out

Why do people decide to make things?

What did people make?
How do DIYers learn what to do
What do they want to achieve?

Methodologies Used

User Survey (14 Participants)
User Interviews (3 Participants aged 28, 32, and 40 and have experience doing DIY projects)

Synthesis

I created an empathy map using the research findings in order to find out trends in user behavior, feelings, and pain points.

What did I find out

Key Research Findings:

Research on how to make something is primarily done online and supplemented with conversations with other people
A big factor on deciding where to buy materials is based on price
Time and cost are large factors when considering a DIY project
Interviewees are concerned about mistakes that can be made in their process
All the materials and tools required can seem overwhelming for each product

Main Pain Points Identified

Not sure if they have enough time
Lack of experience
A feeling of a lack of preparation
Not sure where to find information
Money
Not sure about materials/tools needed
Missing details

Needs

Time saving techniques

To have a good gauge of what materials and tools are needed beforehand
Information available with instructions and options
Detailed information on certain items

Using findings from the empathy map, I identified the following persona. Johnny is a DIYer whose main goal is to improve his home without being pushed too far out of his comfort zone. He is nervous taking on projects he is not ready for, and spending too much on materials and tools

I created an Affnity map in order to try and figure out main issues that people who did DIY projects were having, and where there was an opportunity to help DIYers make their overrall DIY process easier and more accessible. I identified many problems areas which could have been worked on from this affinity map

Problems which I narrowed it down to:

DIYers need to save time
DIYers need to save money
DIYers need to feel more prepared

I felt the main problem was that Johnny needs to feel more prepared when doing a project. Because the two main issues with the persona are that they feel that they lack experience, and DIY projects can be expensive. Making the user feel more confident in doing a project would make for a more pleasant building experience. At the same time if inexperienced DIYers can feel more confident from the beginning of the building process there is potential to attract more DIYers to start projects in turn giving Home Depot more business

POV Statement:

“Johnny needs a way to feel more prepared when doing a project because he usually feels the opposite”

Ideate

Time to brainstorm some solutions…

How might we create a reference for DIYers to make sure that everything is good to go

How might we assist the DIYer in actually completing all of their prep work

How might we be able to keep the DIYers organized during the building process

I ideated possible solutions which would potentially allow a DIYer to feel more prepared either before or during the DIY process.

Initial Ideas

1) List out easily forgotten items and task as a reminder for a DIYer before they start a project

While this solution does help DIYers remember small details, it is hard to tell for each project what are easily forgotten aspects and items related to a project. This solution felt a bit too subjective, and could potentially be different for each user

2) Create an interface which separates DIY projects by potential cost, time it would take to complete, and difficulty level

This solution tackles the problem of DIYers saving time, and money while also allowing users to feel more prepared because they can choose projects based on their skill level

3) Include a reference list where users can keep track of materials they don’t have, and need to get.

This solution assists in DIYers being prepared because a big issue DIYers had based on research is keeping track of everything that was required for a project. And interviewees stated one of their pet peeves being forgetting items, and going to the store for a single item or two.

We decided to proceed with creating an interface which separates projects by time to complete, cost, and difficulty level because we felt like this would solve problems related to time, money, and preparedness, while at the same time being able to attract new DIYers to try and make something because they can start by doing projects categorized as “Easy”

What Features Should be Included?

In order to decide which features to prioritize, “The Must haves” included features that would make it very difficult to do business properly if they were missing. The “Nice to haves” were features which would be considered perks to larger groups and/or returning customers.

Integrating the features into an existing navigation

In order to start building our prototype we creeated a sitemap to get an idea of the overrall layout of the the mobile app. Since we were adding pages to an existing app, the current mobile app navigation was mapped out, and from there we added the pages which were going to be created. We didn’t want to dismantle the current app navigation too much. Therefore, all the pages added were added to the “more” tab in the existing navigation.

The main task

The main task would be for the user to decide on a project, and get the materials. The following user flow outlines how that would look.

I had to keep the current layout of the mobile app in mind, when creating these pages. I wanted users to be able to quickly browse through project categories and subcategories while being able to quickly analyze price, time to complete, and difficulty level. Those sketches allowed me to create mid fidelity wireframes which I proceeded to use in usability testing.

Test/Iterate

Test Objectives

Test the flow of the design

Test if users are able to identify how to find DIY projects
Test if users are able to sort and filter results
Test if users are able to find materials and tools required for a project, and then add what they need to their list

Test Subject: Home Depot Mobile App

Five users tested the prototype remotely using zoom. I wanted to test whether users were able to

Navigate to where they choose a project
Sort and filter results
Find Materials and Tools
Add two materials to their list

Updates that needed to be made based on the user testing

Home Depot Mobile App, what needs to be updated - Sheet1-1.png

Adding Affordance, “Buy” buttons, and “Select”.

Final UI

Final prototype after updates

View Prototype

Next Steps

I would like to also create a feature which allows users to keep track of important parts of a DIY project before they start also. Such as a tool that allows users to remember easily forgotten aspects of a project

Reflection

If I had more time I would have also liked to include users in the testing and the research who do not have DIY experience, to get a better feel for what their specific reservations are. Within this current project, everyone who was tested already has at least some kind of experience doing DIY projects. I feel like the current feature could assist current DIYers in taking on more projects, especially current beginners. However, I am not entirely sure if it has potential to bring new people into the world of DIY. I would like to focus on attracting new people in the future.