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Unlocking procurement visibility for online renovation planning

UX | UI | 0-1 feature

Web-based dashboard that reduces unnecessary communication between customer service agents and customers.
Web-based dashboard that reduces unnecessary communication between customer service agents and customers.

Overview

Skipp renovation provides architectural design services to home owners at reduced cost by leveraging AI powered architectural layout design and interior design consultations.

A renovation with Skipp can last anywhere from 2 ~ 4 months, involving rounds of interior design consultations, architectural drawings, pricing calculations, and construction management.

For this project, I saw the opportunity to reduce unnecessary communication between customer service agent and customers by giving customers direct control of interior design decision making and visibility of procurement.

Year

2022

duration

2 months

what i did

UX Design, Journey mapping, UI design, Workshop moderation, User interviews, Prototyping

The problem

Concierge service and 1-1 interior design consultations were unsustainable for business operations.

A typical customer would spend 1.5hr / week speaking to the customer service agent via video calls or emails to ask for updates about the purchase status of cabinets, appliances, etc. On the agent side, disjointed communication systems (emails and intercom) and lack of process had caused months of confusion and burn out.

Concierge service quickly became unsustainable when the customer base grew.

Challenges with user journey

Matching status chips to the ideal customer experience while balancing technical limitations

We needed to consolidate the ideal user journey before deciding what status labels to show users. The hardest challenge was on the back end: every status chip change involves a person manually triggering it on the agent side portal.

We had to cut down on unnecessary status chips and make sure it fits with the customer service flow.

Inspiration & Research

step 0

Mocking up the feature concept with a spreadsheet

Customers found this useful and agent's were responding less to questions about procurement. However... customers quickly stopped using it because it is too disconnected from the existing user portal. We decided to bring this dashboard feature into the core user portal!

As a test, members of the team ( product manager, procurement agent, customer service agent) mocked up a spreadsheet to track all the products a customer buys. Customers found this useful and agent's were responding less to questions about procurement. However... customers quickly stopped using it because it is too disconnected from the existing user portal.

Design Goals

Design Goals

Design Goal

Design a dashboard that allows customers to track their product purchases for a home renovation and communicate their decisions with agents.

Wireframing

Taking data from the spreadsheet, I drafted wireframes to explore different design directions

Information Hierarchy and UI

I decided to first focus on how to show product information, what's important vs not.

I performed card sorting with 3 customer service agents and 1 customer. This revealed that users potentially need quick access to only 4-5 pieces of information. Leaning in on the moodboard-like experience combined with pop-ups can effectively segment secondary information.

Challenge with User Journey

Matching status chips to the ideal customer experience while balancing technical limitations

We needed to consolidate the ideal user journey before deciding what status labels to show users. The hardest challenge was on the back end: every status chip change involves a person manually triggering it on the agent side portal.

We had to cut down on unnecessary status chips and make sure it fits with the customer service flow.

Final Design

An average home renovation involves 30+ purchase decisions across 8 different vendors Now, we can track it all in 1 place.

Final Design

An average home renovation involves 30+ purchase decisions across 8 different vendors Now, we can track it all in 1 place.

Final Design

An average home renovation involves 30+ purchase decisions across 8 different vendors. Now, we can track it all in 1 place.

Final Design

An average home renovation involves 30+ purchase decisions across 8 different vendors Now, we can track it all in 1 place.

Retrospective
Beyond procurement: visualizing and interacting with a sense of inspiration

Retrospective:
Beyond procurement - how to visualize our spaces with a sense of inspiration

Back in 2022, the focus of the project was about solving issues around operation, communication, and disjointed information of a renovation. As an update, some of the UI design choices I made 3 years ago, like the chips and cards, can be improved to be more compact and less visually clashing.

From exploring Unity, Enscape, and other tools for real-time rendering, I knew it was feasible to bring a visualizer experience to home renovators. Something Ikea has achieved beautifully since the pandemic. The Skipp team had also been considering AI into it's layout engine and architectural workflows.

Three years after this project, there are now AI rendering and visualization tools that could make rendering materials in a customers exact space be even faster than before. From a user experience standpoint, could there be a prompt-driven interior design consultant? Could we give users prompts to render their space with texture maps from a database?

But should there even be an AI design consultant in the first place?

Maybe we shouldn't rob ourselves of the fun of imagining our own space.

Back in 2022, the focus of the project was about solving issues around operation, communication, and disjointed information of a renovation. As an update, some of the UI design choices I made 3 years ago, like the chips and cards, can be improved to be more compact and less visually clashing.

From exploring Unity, Enscape, and other workflows for real-time rendering, I knew it was possible to bring a visualizer experience to home renovators. Something Ikea has achieved beautifully since the pandemic.

Three years after this project, there are now AI rendering and visualization tools that could make rendering materials in a customers exact space be even faster than before. How could these new rendering workflows be incorporated? Would it be possible to give users the tools to prompt their own space? Should their even be an agent driven experience for designing your own space?

There is a lot of new technology but some things don't change. We want the joy of imagining our own spaces and the least logistical friction to make that imagination a reality. These visualization tools should make that possible.

Thank you for reading!

For the full case study , feel free to reach out via email :)

Last updated: 2025/04/15

jouannchen@gmail.com

linkedin

github

are.na

resume

Last updated: 2025/04/15

jouannchen@gmail.com

linkedin

github

are.na

resume

Last updated: 2025/04/15

jouannchen@gmail.com

linkedin

github

are.na

resume

Last updated: 2025/04/15

jouannchen@gmail.com

linkedin

github

are.na

resume