Schumacher's Pathway to Dream Home

Transforming the Custom Home-Building Journey with User-Centered Design and Digital Innovation

Overview

Paul Schumacher Homes is a leader in custom home building, offering tailored solutions to clients seeking their dream homes. To improve their digital experience, Schumacher Homes sought an end-to-end redesign of their online presence. As the Lead UX Strategist, I spearheaded this effort, facilitating research, defining strategy, and delivering a cohesive digital solution.

Challenges

  • Transparency Issues: Pricing information was unclear, leading to frustration among potential customers.

  • Manual Processes: The home-building process heavily relied on in-person interactions, leaving users feeling rushed and overwhelmed.

  • Findability Problems: Customers struggled to locate and revisit styles and options they had liked during the decision-making process.

  • Validation of Concepts: Schumacher Homes wanted to explore the potential of a 3D configurator and its value to the customer journey.

  • Alignment Across Teams: Ensuring the new experience aligned with business objectives, technical feasibility, and user needs.

Approach

User Research and Validation

  • Facilitated and led recruitment for usability and validation interviews, ensuring a diverse mix of participants.

  • Conducted 10 moderated interviews:

    • 5 with existing Schumacher Homes customers to uncover pain points in the custom home-building process.

    • 5 with individuals who had gone through the custom home-building process with competitors to identify differentiators and gaps.

Collaborative Strategy

  • Partnered with a Senior Researcher to synthesize findings and define the overarching strategy.

  • Worked with a team of four designers, fostering collaboration through alignment touchpoints, workshops, and review sessions.

  • Collaborated with a lead developer to assess technical constraints and ensure feasibility of proposed solutions.

  • Partnered with Schumacher Homes’ SEO agency to integrate information architecture changes seamlessly into their broader digital strategy.

Deliverables

  • UX Strategy: Defined key themes and broke them down into specific features and components to guide the redesign effort.

  • Information Architecture: Delivered a comprehensive IA that addressed findability issues and enhanced navigation.

  • Journey Maps: Aligned with Schumacher Homes' existing personas, illustrating the customer journey and highlighting opportunities for improvement.

  • High-Fidelity Clickable Prototype: Created in Figma, showcasing final designs for desktop and mobile experiences.

Key Focus Areas

Pricing Transparency

  • Challenge: Users were frustrated by the lack of clear pricing information.

  • Solution: Designed transparent pricing modules that clearly outlined costs, helping users make informed decisions.

3D Configurator

  • Challenge: Users expressed interest in visualizing customizations but lacked tools to do so effectively.

  • Solution: Designed a 3D configurator for desktop and mobile, allowing users to visualize and customize their dream home in real-time.

Improved Decision-Making Tools

  • Challenge: Users had difficulty tracking options they liked after visiting model homes.

  • Solution: Created a personalized account dashboard to save and revisit preferred styles, features, and configurations.

Streamlined Customer Journeys

  • Challenge: The manual home-building process left users feeling rushed and overwhelmed.

  • Solution: Developed journey maps that aligned with existing personas, enabling a more empathetic, user-centered approach.

Collaboration Across Teams

  • Challenge: Ensuring alignment between UX, development, and business stakeholders.

  • Solution: Hosted alignment touchpoints and collaborative workshops to integrate research findings, business objectives, and technical constraints seamlessly.

Solution

*Click samples below to view full display.

Impact

  • Enhanced Usability: A streamlined information architecture improved navigation and findability, reducing user frustration.

  • Validated Innovation: 100% of participants validated the value of the 3D configurator concept, reinforcing its importance in the final design.

  • Customer Empowerment: Transparent pricing and personalized dashboards empowered users to make confident decisions.

  • Scalability: Delivered a design framework that supports future enhancements and updates.

Leading this effort was a testament to the importance of combining user insights with strategic design thinking. By addressing pain points and validating innovative solutions, we delivered a digital experience that reflects Schumacher Homes' commitment to making the path to a dream home seamless and enjoyable.

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