understanding trends

In order to create the best product, I conducted a competitive analysis to look at how leading competitors in the furniture market are succeeding and falling short. It was especially important to note where all these competitors fell short so I could inform my design decisions for Khora's website.
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Currently, brands like IKEA, Wayfair, and Amazon dominate the furniture market. These brands are known for their wide selection of products and affordable furniture. Many consumers default to IKEA due to their easy-to-pair, minimal Scandinavian furniture. However, many retailers lack the option to sort items by furniture style.

what do users think?

To confirm that the hypothesized problem is indeed an issue, user interviews were conducted to have a better understanding of what users want to see from the furniture market. Most participants agreed they feel like they don't know how to furnish their home and that they would like their home to reflect their tastes.

3 participants in their mid-20s were were interviewed 1-on-1.
22 participants between the 20-50 years old were asked to share their thoughts through a survey.

who is the target audience?

To consolidate all of the users' needs, motivations, and frustrations, a persona was created to have a specific user in mind when designing Khora's key features.

• This persona wants to start investing in longer lasting furniture for their next apartment.
• They want to be able to style a cohesive interior without much time or difficulty.
• They are looking for ways to have more unique styles present in their future home.

mapping flows

Khora's main goal is to help users discover and learn about different furniture styles that are available to them, as well as save pieces to their own boards to help plan their homes before purchasing their items.
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Before building out the wireframes, it was important to go through the main task flow to identify what key pages needed to be prioritized. Although additional pages could be added to the flow in the next steps of Khora's development, the five pages addressed in this case study for the sake of the main flow were the Home Page, Style Details Page, Item Details Page, Saved Board Page, and the Checkout/Cart Page. An additional screen of a separate furniture brand was created to give the user the full experience of being redirected from Khora directly to the retailer at checkout.
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Detailed User Flow

key features and elements

The research informed a lot about what features would be needed to address the user frustrations. It was important to identify which features would be added based on both the competitive and user research.
These features were then implemented in Khora's initial sketches and wireframes.

troubleshooting

The checkout page had major issues come up during the sketching and low-fidelity wireframe phase.
It needed to allow users to have items from different retailers in their cart simultaneously. Additionally, factors such as different shipping times, varying shipping costs, and unique retailer-exclusive discounts had to be taken into consideration.
Sites like Amazon and Etsy that allow users to have multiple items with different shipping conditions in their cart were referenced when creating the final checkout page - however, because users are not purchasing items directly through Khora, the checkout page also needed to redirect users to the retailers themselves.

branding

As for the branding, a minimal and modern approach was taken - having a simple interface with clean lines would compliment the different styles of furniture present on Khora's site. To make it more visually interesting and stand out from other websites in the furniture market, a darker color was used as the background and arched windows were used as a design element.

usability testing

After developing the product, it was important to put Khora's website to the test with some usability testing.

Amongst the successes, most users mentioned appealing colors and design, as well as liking the organization of furniture by style. Users thought Khora was successful in creating a new way of furniture shopping.
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However, there were some pain points that needed to be addressed. After finding the patterns across each category of the user feedback, I identified what features would be necessary to address those concerns, as well as what were the priority revisions.

next steps

The next steps would be to create pages for other user flows, such as account creation, finding inspiration from other users' boards, a personalized style quiz, etc. It would also be necessary to test those additional user flows with more usability tests, as well as conducting those usability tests with a wider demographic to make sure the website is as accessible and approachable as intended. Lastly, working with a developer would help identify what elements aren't working as successfully or as intended.

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