Project Overview
ABOUT INTERIOR DEFINE
Interior Define is a made-to-order furniture company that specializes in creating sofas that meet customers’ needs. Customization options include collections, configurations, fabrics, legs, sizes, and more.
MY ROLE
This feature started as my person Hack Day project that I convinced the business to develop. As the only product designer on this project, I led user testing, competitive analysis, and stakeholder meetings. I worked very closely with product managers, developers, and business stakeholders.
THE PROBLEM
The swatch store lets customers order fabric samples before they buy custom upholstered furniture. It's also Interior Define's main ad landing page and acquisition point. Users were having a hard time selecting which fabric samples they wanted to order due to an ever-increasing assortment of 140+ fabrics.
Project Considerations & Goals
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Increase swatch store (and therefore overall website) conversion rate
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Help customers narrow down their fabric choices with a friendly, engaging, and supportive quiz
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Create a design that requires low development effort by using the existing store and filters as a framework
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Design a flow that could be tested, tweaked, and updated as the fabric assortment changes
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Support the majority of customers who land on this page from ads on their phone with a mobile-first design
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Use imagery and copy to introduce customers to the brand while explaining the fabric options
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Develop quiz questions that make customers feel heard and comfortable
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Encourage the customer to provide their email for sales leads and personalization – but in a manner that feels helpful, not pushy
Competitive & Comparative Research
I analyzed and mapped out features from other sites with swatches, sample offerings, or similar quiz flows. I paid attention to what felt fun and engaging versus what felt overwhelming.
Iterate, User Test, Repeat
Once I had my priorities defined, I began to iterate different design possibilities. After checking in with the development team for feasibility, I prototyped and user tested different designs until I found the most successful paths.
Before
After
One example of how user feedback was integrated into the design was in the critical email-capturing step.
Originally, I had phrased the email step as “saving” your quiz results since that is how the majority of other e-commerce companies approach this step.
However, the feedback I got from users was overwhelmingly negative (even though there was an option to skip the step). Users expressed feeling “tricked” and “angry” and some said they would not even continue if they saw this step.
When I pivoted the phrasing be about receiving one-on-one support from a Design Expert, the user interpretation was completely flipped – many expressed that this was a unique and helpful feature that they would opt into. Even users that said the offering wasn’t for them finished the quiz feeling positive about the experience.
From Idea to Reality
For a time there was little room for new features in the roadmap due to a complete website replatform and company acquisition. I used some of that time to user test and iterate any future projects – including the swatch store quiz.
Once the dust settled, it was clear that the goals post-acquisition were generating more sales leads and increasing user trust. I knew the developer lift for the swatch quiz was quite low, plus it had been user tested and generally approved by stakeholders.
I pitched the swatch quiz to leadership, including the benefits, effort level, and data showing that this was a feature that customers were looking for. After a few quick tweaks to the images and branding, the quiz was developed and recently released on the site.
Final Design
The quiz is live on the site, but is being tested through social and email before a CTA is added to the swatch store.
What's Next
Since this quiz was designed to be quickly developed so we could test and iterate, we cut it down to MVP features. However, once we have performance measurements, there are a few updates planned.
One update includes adding a "sort" attribute to the swatches that would allow the Merchandising team to rank them based on sales and stock availability.
A sort attribute would allow us to present an intermediate page to the customers that narrows down their quiz results to 10 or fewer fabrics so they can go straight to checkout.
