The Home Depot Website and App

(Work completed while a student at General Assembly)

Assignment : give users a way to brainstorm, plan, track and document their DIY projects and have the information available on multiple platforms.

Research : Through our comparative analysis we found that The Home Depot Website and App leads the industry when it comes to the tools and features available. However, we also identified that they were missing some type of project tracker or guide to assist users through a project.

Along with this analysis we did phone interviews with numerous potential users who had varying degrees of experience when it comes to DIY projects. The majority of our interviewees did not see the website and app as viable options for help because they seemed overwhelming and cluttered. This was a great example of how just adding features without guidance can actually hurt usability, the opposite of the intended effect. One interviewee, Anne, said "I wish they would make projects like cooking sites make recipes, so I can see all the materials and all the steps." This would prove to be our guiding idea through the rest of the project.

Prototyping :  With the information that we had gained we started sketching out our ideas and producing our first paper prototypes. 

After some user testing on the paper prototypes, we made adjustments and created a clickable mobile prototype and got it in the hands of more users.

This final user testing solidified that users wanted help with their projects and enjoyed being walked through step by step with everything they needed being laid out for them. The challenge that we continued to face was how to get users who would like help to use the guide without disturbing the path of users that didn't need help and didn't want to go through additional steps.

Solution : An optional guide through DIY projects resulting in a "recipe" that can be followed to complete the project.

We created a persona for the first-time homeowner, who was the most logical choice for our user case.

Our user's path through the process spanning the website and app.

Annotations showing off the features of the app and website pages that we worked on. 

The "recipe", one simple page, printable, with everything you need to complete the project of your choice.