Kinn Home

Overview

Kinn Home for years had been selling tableware to individuals as a brick and mortar store. Although numerous people were buying the products, the buying process was not as user friendly and efficient as customers would like. For 8 weeks in summer 2018,  I was brought on board to help make the buying process more user friendly and I was able to accomplish the following tasks:

• Create an extensive user analysis report

• Design a user flow for the website

• Build an online curation tool

Research

USER RESEARCH

In order to better understand the problem space and to understand user needs, we sent out 100+ surveys and carried out semi-structured interviews. The main goal of this process was to understand the users’ buying and dining experience by understanding their pain points and wish lists in these experiences.

 I had three hypotheses:

1. When buying tableware, the process of pulling together a cohesive look would be challenging and inconvenient

2. Before purchasing tableware, input from family and friends would be important to the users

3. Users would love to know how the pieces they purchased fit in with their homes.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS 

I summarized the responses into activity notes and the affinity diagram shown below:

From the research, I realized that most of the users cited meal times as valuable parts of their day and that they wished that the buying process was easier .

Pain Points

• Not knowing what to buy and what suit them

• Hated when they had to change almost everything when they changed one piece

• Didn’t like having to go to the store to purchase items

SYNTHESIS

With the research insights, I was able to identify Kinn’s target audience and come up with 3 personas to better empathize with the users. I then came up with a user journey map to showcase how a persona would approach the buying tableware, highlighting the persona’s overall feelings and pain points.

TARGET AUDIENCE

With the target audience identified, I then came up with personas and user journey maps.

PERSONAS

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Using the research insights and tools for empathizing with users, I summarized the user needs into a problem statement.

When people are having/ setting up meal settings, they want to buy appropriate tableware essentials, so that they cultivate meaningful moments. But they can’t do this well because:

1. They don’t know which tableware would be appropriate for them 

2. They don’t know how to approach the buying process

3. They don’t know how to set up the tableware well enough to create meaningful moments.

Brainstorming and Ideation

For the ideation sprint, I carried out a 5 minute timed sketch work activity and came up with 10+ ideas that could help solve the people problem identified. I evaluated the ideas based on feasibility and creativity scale and also carried out a SWOT analysis of the remaining ideas and together with the other teams voted on the best ideas. I also came up with storyboards to help think of the potential solutions.

STORYBOARDS

With the potential solutions identified, moved into the design phase with three main ideas:

1. Creation of a curation tool

2. Try at home program

3. Web platform

USER JOURNEY MAP

Design Phase

LOW- FIDELITY SKETCHES - 3 IDEAS

IDEA #1 - CURATION TOOL

Main goal of the curation to is to help customers find appropriate tableware that is best for them by enabling the users to customize their selections to fit their needs.

The curation tool main functionalities would be to enable user to see:

• color they like

• their preferred texture

• whether the different combinations went well with each other

I sketched the curation tool and the main interaction considerations during this process was to identify:

• How to place the tableware

• Where to place the color palette and texture options

• The different functionalities of the curation tool

Sketches taking account interaction considerations

Consideration #1: Determining the tableware positioning

Final tableware positioning

Consideration #2: Positioning of color and texture options

Final color and texture positioning

IDEA #2 - TRY AT HOME PROGRAM

I was tasked with identifying the flow of this program and how our customers would interact with the site in order to take part in this program.

Main goals of this program are:

1. Help the user see whether the pieces went well together with their homes

2. Help the user identify whether the pieces went well with the rest of the utensils.

IDEA #3- ONLINE WEBSITE PLATFORM

Main goal of the online website was to is to help customers find appropriate tableware that is best for them and provide an online experience that mirrors the warm and welcoming in-store experience

I sketched the online website platform and the main interaction considerations during this process was to identify:

• The needs of the users who come to the site

• Priority of these needs

• How to come up with effortless interaction that mirrors in-store experience
  
  

USER FLOW

In order to accurately identify the user needs and to identify the priority of these needs, I came up with a user flow to inform my interaction decisions. This user flow was based on user responses, analysis and responses.

I identified that people came to the site to:

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

I created an information architecture in order to guide the website flow.

Initial Designs

CURATION TOOL

WEBSITE

Usability Testing

I decided to do some usability testing on the high fidelity final designs of the curation tool and the website.

Expected user flow of the curation tool

 I tested the following:

1. Whether the minimal samples available in the sample kit are enough to make final decisions on the set quantity

2. The curation tool interface.

3. Website flow

Success Metrics:

• Amount of time it took to perform tasks

• Level of satisfaction of the users

• Achievement of intended goal

Iteration and Redesign

#1 - Try at Home Program - Sample sizes vs actual items

Most of the users were comfortable with the interface but admitted that sample kit was not enough to make a final decision and this was further confirmed in the second usability test carried out. 

In order to test whether the sample kit was enough to enable the users to purchase the whole set, carried out usability testing by physically providing the sample kit, together with its contents to the users. The users interacted with the sample kit products and I posed questions in a bid to understand whether interacting with these products was enough to help them make their purchase decision.

We decided on sending the real tableware instead of sending samples and this way customers could have actual representation of the items they are trying to buy. This reasoning was also feasible for the business goals as the business would spend less shipping costs through this flow.

#2 - Navigation Bar content

This iteration resulted in use of every day language that was more understandable to the users and that fit the users’ model and better directed them to achieve their goals. Based on observation and feedback also provided direct access to the main needs that users had.

#3 - Content of the Home Page

This iteration resulted in use of every day language that was more understandable to the users and that fit the users’ model and better directed them to achieve their goals. Made the two main user needs easily accessible to the users.

Also provided an explanation of how the Try at home program works as well as information about the company to the users as most users said that after going through the home page, they still had no idea what the company was about and how it was different from other companies.

#4 - Product Information Page

This allowed the users to have all the information that they needed in order to make the purchase decision. This information includes whether the dishes were microwave and dishwasher friendly.

 FINAL PROTOTYPE

CONCLUSION

OUTCOMES

Solved the initial people problem in the following ways:

• People Problem #1 : Need for customer centered online experience

  • Solution : Website flow that is user-centered

• People Problem #2 : Need to find appropriate tableware that best suit the users

  • Solution #1 : Online Curation Tool

  • Solution #2 : Try at Home Program

KEY TAKEAWAYS AND REFLECTIONS

From this project I took away a couple of key points:

1. Listen and watch your users : It’s only through carefully listening to the users and observing their actions that I was able to discover what the users really needed and also what they expected.

2. Constant iteration is vital : Bit by bit iteration helped to progressively improve the initial solution and to ensure that the solutions kept referencing the people problem.

3. Importance of using low fidelity testing during initial testing : During the initial user testing I used high fidelity mockups and I noticed that the users were afraid to make mistakes on the site.

NEXT STEPS

If I had more time, I could have explored the idea of packages for certain important life events e.g. registry for weddings.