Anja Kruslin Design

The Problem

Houzz is an online interior design platform that has many offerings for it’s users, but all of the choices are listed out in 5 huge navigation drop-down menus that can be very overwhelming. Since this is the primary navigation for the site, it is often part of user’s first impression and drives some users away from making use of all of the features. 

Simplifying the site’s primary navigation is the problem that will be tackled in the following case study.

Background

Houzz offers inspirational photos, access to home design professionals, a marketplace for home design products and editorial pieces. 

While the app and website platforms offer a variety of enticing features, like the View in My Room option that provides renderings of products that can be placed in the space you desire as a preview, users seem to be overwhelmed by the range of offerings the site provides. As such, many users are unaware of some of these features, therefore not making use of all that Houzz has to offer.

To simplify the menus, the first step was to take the site to the users and see what they had to say.

Research

Usability Testing

These usability tests included three tasks based on real scenarios users might find themselves in.

Tasks:

Given the following product image (as a place holder for an idea of a product a user might see in a cafe and then would search for on the site and consider purchasing)

• Find the product on the site.

Given the following product image and name (as a place holder for a product a user is familiar with and would try to then find on the site)

• Find the product on the site.

When browsing inspirational photos, users were tasked with finding a lamp (a place holder for a product a user might see while browsing and subsequently consider purchasing).

Findings

User’s were asked to find the product without guidance as to whether to use the search bar or navigation menu, to see what people would naturally gravitate towards. Some users used both, but for those that chose one method, they were then asked to accomplish the same task using the other (search bar/navigation menus respectively).

While the results yielded many interesting findings such as a lack of consistency across navigation landing pages, due to time constraints, the focus was to find a problem to solve that would take the least amount of time but yield the greatest impact.

A common response from users was that the navigation dropdown menus offered an overwhelming amount of information. Many users attempted to use these menus to accomplish the tasks, but quickly reverted to the search option because they did not wish to spend time figuring out which of the many options would route them to the pages they desired.

Users also found the descriptions of products helpful as some were not versed in the naming conventions used by industry professionals that appear in the menus.

Solution

Simpler navigation drop-downs that still managed to encompass the wide array of offerings.

Strategy

Recreate the existing 4 navigation menus (excluding sale) to include two-tiers of options, overarching categories, and more specific offerings within each of those.

The existing content in the menus shaped the creation of overarching categories for the first tier of navigation under which the second tier would hide. This made browsing faster, and the limited set of options made users want to explore more, instead of quickly reverting back to the search bar in effort to save time and thinking involved in figuring out which option would lead them to their desired category of products/results. 

Creating the first tier of categories proved to be a difficult task, as many of the sub-options could fit into various different categories. Also, avid users would have been familiar with the existing categorization, so the final result needed to be in keeping with that terminology and hierarchy.

To maintain accuracy, an industry professional was consulted as well.

Since Houzz has an established style guide, the UI is designed to seamlessly integrate with the existing design.

Key Takeaways

While a double navigation menu is often less simple than a single, deeming it an unnecessary extra step in the user flow; in this case hiding options in broader categories allow easier browsing and a quicker way to find the category a user was searching for since the array of offerings on the site is so vast.

Validation

In usability tests of the old v. new designs given to 5 regular users of the Houzz app and website to test, 4/5 of users found that the redesign of the navigation menus provided a more enjoyable experience on the site. It saved them time, and the initial shock of being faced with so many decisions upon browsing through the menus.