Houzz: Kleiner Perkins Design Case Study

Introduction

Update: Selected as a Finalist

While checking out Kleiner Perkins’ portfolio companies for the Design Fellowship Challenge, I chose Houzz—a company I am very familiar with, have used before, and whose users I could interview (friends and family who have used Houzz as well).

TLDR: Modernize Houzz’s content discovery and search methods.

Design Changes

Houzz offers a wealth of great content for building your home and shopping. However, for a first-time user, navigating the application and getting started can be challenging. Even as a regular user, I sometimes find it difficult to find inspiration and where to get started.

Current Design:

I've redesigned the Discover page to align with the popular trend of quick and engaging content discovery seen on many platforms, such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts. The goal is to keep users engaged for longer periods and sustain their curiosity.

You might wonder why a non-social media app like Houzz should adopt this format. Rather than diverting from Houzz's goals, this approach aims to keep users engaged longer, understand their interests, and open new revenue streams. Delivering content in short, engaging bursts has been shown to significantly improve retention, user growth, and monetization. In fact, the Harvard Business Review found that even a 5% increase in retention could increase revenues by 25% to 95%. For mobile apps in particular, consistent user engagement is how you build revenue off things like ads, partnerships, and premium services. Studies indicate that users are 1.5 times more likely to make a purchase after discovering something in this short-form style.

Source:

The Impact of TikTok User Satisfaction on Continuous Intention to Use the Application

People use social media not only for social purposes but also for business purposes. It is used in management and marketing as a tool to manage organizations and market products and services, especially to influence customers’ intention and satisfaction. Therefore, the research purpose is to define factors that influence continuous intention to use TikTok in Jordan and to what extent satisfaction with TikTok influences continuous intention to use TikTok. The current research uses a quantitative cross-sectional approach. Data was collected by online surveys and shared on several social media sites such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. A total of 402 responses were valid for further analysis. Then, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed. The results indicate that the following factors significantly affect satisfaction: self-expression, informativeness, a sense of belonging, and trendiness in TikTok. However, the following factors do not significantly affect satisfaction: sociability, affection in TikTok, and past time in TikTok. The factors can explain 48.5% of satisfaction. Finally, satisfaction has a positive significant influence on users’ continuous intention to use TikTok and can explain 30.6% of the user’s continuous intention to use TikTok. In conclusion, the organizations have to heavily use the factors that influence the users’ satisfaction to increase users’ continuous intention.

https://www.mdpi.com/2199-8531/8/3/125

I also completely redesigned the search function. With the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs), a cool company that has challenged the notion of traditional search has been The Browser Company's 'search for me' feature. I wanted to implement a similar feature using a fine-tuned LLM model tailored for housing data and information. This feature would allow users to input general queries, such as 'I need help remodeling my kitchen.' The system then would provides curated results, suggestions, images, and more. This approach allows for a more frictionless approach to search allowing users to get information based on what their user preferences and general trends (potentially pulled from the discover page).

Redesigned Changes:

Branding Changes:

Design Board:

KP Fellowship Design Challenge - Deniz Jasarbasic

Conclusion

This is a case study for Kleiner Perkins Design Fellowship. I am in no way affiliated with Houzz.

In this case study, I focused on updating the Houzz app’s UI and UX to align with modern content and search trends, such as 'short' style content and LLM-based search technology. Had a blast working on this short project and building on my passion for product design :)