Online Design Platform

Online Home Design Platform

During May 2015 - Feb 2017 ( 2 years )

Project for Kujiale.com（Exacloud Inc.）

WEB DESIGN

UX RESEARCH

INTERACTION DESIGN

UX/UI DESIGN

BACKGROUND

Family begin with a house, people are eager to know in advance the house what looks like.

This project aims to provide a platform for the home remodel and design, eliminates the barriers of professional design software and let everyone could be a designer. As the designer on the team, my role is to reimagine the UX and UI for online design platform.

This project has developed rapidly in China.

Online design platform preview

The rendering by the online Home Design Platform

PROBLEM SPACE

How can we improve people’s experience of Interior Design?

This journey includes the work people do about looking for inspiration, easy to achieve design ideas, and finding the furniture and decoration they want through only one platform

Here come the design challenges:

(Usability/Accessibility) How can we make the platform to use easier than 3dsMax and CAD？
(Efficiency) How to save time in the design process?
(Realization) How can we get a real design when we use the platform?

Through comparing the traditional design process to seek more simplified way of operating

USER RESEARCH & ITERATE FAST

Through an interactive design process, we were quickly building an interactive prototype and testing it with product managers and engineers for feedback. After creating the first version of the product, we invited users to test. Learning from the user's problems, we promptly found solutions and iterate fast. Some of these user research helped us make small usability improvements, some helped us make major changes in the design direction.

Frame work and flow map

Process of User Research

For the features what we want to research, we alway design targeted tasks and invite users to complete the test. For example, import counter-draw function of the research:

Individually invite the old and new users to use the import counter-draw function to complete the establishment of floorplan
Observe and record users what problems are encountered of using in the process
Summarize and analyze the cause of the problems
Hold a meeting to discuss the priority of issues
Design solutions by priority (aspects of product logic, interaction, and visual)
Promote to the development cycle

PRODUCT DECISIONS

Prioritizing the features based on user research

Based on user research and competitive analysis, include the following features that provide the most value to users in the platform:

Search and use floorplan directly

Covering large amount of apartment plans across the country in the platform, search and use directly, save the time of measure and depict floorplan

Matching models with smart

Matching models with smart, automatic match home layout, selection of house style

A large number of real 3D model

Provide large number of real 3D model, sofas, tables and chairs etc. and just use with dragging, they also could be purchased directly

Rendering fast

Independent development of rendering technology, rapidly render high-definition renderings for improving efficiency

Through Design Platform design 2D & Panorama programs, and show them on APP and Website

Compare to professional tools with features and process

DESIGN DECISIONS

Reduce the cost of learning

Feasible hierarchy relationship and guidance could help users to understand and use tools quickly. In this platform, I made the hierarchy and logic from left to right. User just drags the model from the left model zone onto the operating zone and renders the image on the right finally.

Be mindful of function priority

Collect and analyze users' usage habits and frequency of use, transfer and hide functions that are uncommonly used, integrate and group commonly used functions.

Simplify the workflow

Provide convenient and common template to users, they could use directly and save time to adjust various complex parameters.

Posters