The Houzz Blog

Designing View in My Room 3D

Monday, May 15, 2017

One of the things I love most about being a product designer at Houzz is how I’m constantly challenged by projects. Most recently I worked on View in My Room 3D (VIMR 3D), which brings augmented reality to the Houzz shopping experience, making it easy for people to find products that will work great in their homes. We had to overcome major design and technical challenges to make VIMR 3D an intuitive and easy-to-use feature for our users. Here are some takeaways from the process:

Define clear goals. This first step was critical to finding the right design solution. We had to think about what we wanted VIMR 3D to do, and what the user experience should be. We wanted to give our users the most value from our visualization tool, and take online shopping a step further by creating a rich mobile experience that is both human-centered and enjoyable.

Research. As a part of the design process at Houzz, we use research to gather insights and identify the best approach for our problem. For VIMR 3D, we started by asking basic questions such as “Why do people shop online?” “How do people shop online?” “What is the difference between online and offline shopping?” Visualization emerged as a key to decision-making for online shoppers. The ability to view products in the context of your room, scale them, move them and share them with others, creates a better shopping experience.

Test and iterate. Any designer will tell you that crafting a simple interaction is a challenging task. The new technologies and sensing abilities of devices have allowed us to present a new way of interaction through augmented reality. We thought about the movements of the finger and thumb that allow a user to interact with the app, and how these gestures have a universal quality. Through user testing, we found that in general, people will most likely try to pinch to zoom or use a single finger to drag an object around in space. We continued to iterate several different options for gestures and tested them against each other with the aim of finding the most intuitive interaction for VIMR 3D.

By defining clear goals, researching, and iterating across all stages of design and development, we were able to deliver a feature that addresses a major pain-point in online shopping, and that we’re all very proud of as a team. What really excites me though is what comes after the launch of a new feature: the immediate feedback we get from our enormous community of homeowners and home professionals. This input is what challenges us to enhance new features like VIMR 3D even further to provide the best experience for home design – and shopping.

Houzz Survey: Moms Tell Us What They Want for Mother’s Day

Friday, May 12, 2017

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, we asked more than 1,500 moms what they really want for Mother’s Day and many of the responses centered on the home, from their preferred place to celebrate to the type of gift they hope to receive. In fact, the majority of moms say they’d like to stay home for Mother’s Day (53%), while going out is a distant second (28%).

Of those interested in staying at home, the most popular request is to enjoy a meal with the family, cooked by someone else (40%), followed by a family activity (25%) like watching movies, playing games or gardening. Responses from moms who want to go out for Mother’s Day have similar themes, with 47% of moms requesting a meal with family and 23% interested in attending a cultural event with their family, like visiting a museum, going to the movie theater or watching a live sporting event.

Flowers seem to be a popular request (at least, that’s what we hear from 19% of responding moms), but nearly the same amount of moms say their ideal gift is something for the home (16%). For inspiration, check out this collection of thoughtful home decor Mother’s Day gifts from Houzz.

However you choose to celebrate, we wish all moms a happy and healthy Mother’s Day!

My Houzz: Ludacris Surprises Mom with a Home Makeover

Thursday, May 11, 2017

In time for Mother’s Day, we’re excited to share the latest “My Houzz,” episode, which follows renowned recording artist and actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges as he makes over his mom Roberta’s home in Atlanta. Roberta lives in the first house Bridges bought when he became commercially successful as the rapper Ludacris. While she wanted to make the space her own, many of the rooms she had started were incomplete and reflected Bridges’ style.

Working with an Atlanta-based designer from the Houzz community, Bridges and his wife Eudoxie transformed what was once Bridges’ home into Roberta’s home, using Houzz at each step of the process. Check out the ideabooks he used for inspiration here and shop the look from the finished space.

Houzz Brings Augmented Reality to Home Design and Shopping

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Ever have trouble visualizing what a new piece of furniture will look like in your house before you buy it? Houzz has launched View in My Room 3D within our app for iPhone and iPad to help you find the best products for your home. With View in My Room 3D, people can now preview over 300,000 furniture and decor products from the Houzz Shop in 3D, within their own homes, before they buy. The 3D models on Houzz include materials and textures, so that shoppers can see realistic surfaces rather than just shapes, helping them to pick the best products for their space.

View in My Room 3D is the work of Houzz’s in-house team dedicated to applying the latest in visual technologies, including visual search and augmented reality, to the home design and shopping experience. Led by Sally Huang, the team is comprised of engineers and artists, many of whom have 3D graphics experience from the video game and visual effects industries. You can learn more about Sally and her experience building View in My Room 3D here.

To use View in My Room 3D, simply tap the “View in My Room 3D” button on a product page for any 3D-enabled product to launch your device’s camera and see the product in your home. You can read more about the feature and check out a demo here.

The Houzz app, updated with View in My Room 3D, is available to download on the Apple App Store℠.

Houzzer Profile: Sally Huang, Visual Technologies Lead

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Today Houzz released View in My Room 3D for iPhone® and iPad®, which allows app users to preview more than 300,000 furniture and decor products from the Houzz Shop in 3D, within their own homes, before they buy. As the team lead, Sally Huang oversees all aspects of the 3D and augmented reality (AR) technology features for Houzz from developing a roadmap to data creation and processing pipelines, to the actual code that displays it. Outside of work, Sally enjoys photography, playing geeky board games, and spending time with Digby, her corgi.

How will View in My Room 3D help homeowners and home pros with their projects?
View in my Room 3D will help users overcome the visualization gap. It’s difficult to imagine how a piece of furniture or fixture might look in your own home without being able to tangibly place it in the space. This feature empowers homeowners and home pros to virtually arrange products in a home, manipulate the items, rotating and placing them at the best position and angle to see how the product would look in real life. You can then either buy the product within the Houzz app or capture what’s on your screen, creating a Sketch that is saved to a Houzz ideabook where it can be shared with family, a home professional or other collaborators.

How does the 3D experience improve the previous 2D version of View in My Room?
Since View in My Room was introduced in 2D last year, it has driven higher engagement and purchase conversion on the Houzz App, but we knew there were opportunities to further enrich the experience for the community. The 3D feature allows users to rotate the furniture 360 degrees instead of just flipping it, helping users to more realistically visualize furniture layout before purchase.

What was the biggest challenge that your team faced in creating View in My Room 3D and how did you overcome it?
Houzz has one of the largest libraries of 3D furniture models – more than 300,000 products – which is an incredible offering for our community. Working with the sheer volume and complexity of 3D data was challenging because that requires processing many types of data from text to images to 3D meshes. We worked with other teams within Houzz to develop backend infrastructure and farm automation to manage the product volume of the project.

What’s the development process like at Houzz?
The development process at Houzz is very collaborative. We knew we wanted to create something that could impact the broader Houzz community, which meant we needed to work very closely with multiple teams to ensure a seamless integration of this feature into all aspects of the Houzz app. Almost everyone at Houzz had a hand in developing the final product – design and iOS engineering ironed out the app UX, while data analytics built the data processing farm, and the marketplace team provided product APIs, backend setup and managed our servers. There were so many other people involved, as well. It was truly a team effort.

Your background is in video game development. How does that apply to what you do at Houzz?
Video games have been using 3D graphic technology to deliver compelling user experiences for decades. From 3D data management techniques to 3D user experience paradigms, I take a lot of ideas from my experiences in video game development and apply them to solve real world problems for the Houzz community.

What do you enjoy most about your role at Houzz?
Definitely the people. Houzz has an amazing and intelligent cross-disciplinary team that works together to solve difficult problems. We come up with the best and most creative solutions when people with vastly different backgrounds (for example artists and engineers) put their minds together, and I’m thankful every day to be able to work with such a diverse group of people.

Watch Mila Kunis Surprise Her Parents with a Major Renovation on My Houzz

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

In the latest episode of “My Houzz,” Mila Kunis secretly renovates the LA condo where her parents raised her and her brother, and have been living for more than two decades. According to Mila, the space didn’t work well for her family before the project and “kinda looked like Miami Vice, circa 1994.”

Mila used Houzz at every step of the process to transformed the compartmentalized condo into an open, bright space their growing family can enjoy.

The episode even includes a cameo by Mila’s husband and My Houzz Executive Producer Ashton Kutcher. Watch it here, shop the look and check out the ideabooks Mila used for inspiration.

It’s Time to Put Your Best Front Yard Forward

Monday, April 17, 2017

The saying, ‘put your best foot forward,’ is certainly ringing true with nearly half of landscaping projects focused on the front yard (44%), according to our 2017 U.S. Landscaping Trends Study. The survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. homeowners who are planning, in the midst of, or recently completed an outdoor project, found that these new looks are being driven by environmentally conscious decisions, pressures from a homeowners association and the desire to personalize a new home.

Of the three-quarters of homeowners who have a lawn, 76% make changes to it during an outdoor project. Front yard lawns are much more likely to be removed altogether than back or side lawns (26% versus 9%, respectively), with environmental considerations being a stronger motivator for front lawns (44% versus 26%, respectively).

Among those reducing or removing their existing lawns, ground cover plants (55%) and mulch (50%) are favored for front yards. More than half of those updating their front yards say that beds or borders (47%), shrubs (29%), and perennials (28%) are the most important features of their home’s curb appeal. Other top features include trees (18%), lighting (16%) and pathways (13%).

This also provides ample opportunity for homeowners to differentiate their frontage from the rest of the neighborhood, letting their unique personalities shine. Only 6% of front yards are nearly identical to others in the neighborhood after outdoor projects, compared with over a third before the update (36%). Two in five front yards are very or extremely different from others in the neighborhood post-update (41%).

All differentiation is within reason depending on where you live. One in four outdoor projects (23%) is subject to local restrictions or requirements, such as homeowner and/or neighborhood associations (23% and 5%, respectively). In the absence of those rules, nearly one in four homeowners would either take on a different project or skip the project altogether (13% and 3%, respectively). Find out any HOA boundaries before you take a shovel to the soil!

While the term ‘curb appeal’ is often associated with real estate listings, the highest motivation for starting a landscaping project is led by homeowners who have purchased a home and want to personalize it (33%). This is followed closely by those who pursue an outdoor project because elements of the outdoor space have deteriorated and/or broken down (32%). Other projects are driven by homeowners who have wanted to do it all along and finally have the time (28%) or financial means (25%) to do it.

Whatever the motivation, a secondary result from outdoor projects might surprise you. One in five homeowners reports more interaction with next-door neighbors post-project (18%), which ranges from small talk (71%) and providing help when needed (42%) to sharing drinks or meals with each other (32% and 28%, respectively). Interactions with neighbors increase twice as much for new homebuyers (40%), pointing to outdoor projects as ice breakers when moving into a new neighborhood.

You can read the full report here.

A National Siblings Day Surprise from Actress Jenna Fischer on My Houzz

Monday, April 10, 2017

In time for National Siblings Day, we’ve launched the latest episode of “My Houzz,” which features actress Jenna Fischer as she surprises her sister Emily with a major home renovation. The house holds particular meaning as it was designed by Jenna’s grandfather, is the home where her father grew up, and the host to many Fischer family events.

Using Houzz, Jenna was able to renovate Emily’s home in Missouri from her home in California, including finding a local designer with great reviews, sharing ideas with the Houzz community, and purchasing products and materials from the Houzz Shop.

Watch the episode here, shop the look and check out the ideabooks Jenna used for inspiration on Houzz. Stay tuned for three more My Houzz episodes launching in the coming months.

Announcing Hide From My Room™ in the Houzz App

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Today, we’re excited to introduce Hide From My Room™, a new tool in the Houzz app helps you get rid of unwanted items in your home, instantly. We heard from the Houzz community that a major hurdle to achieving their home vision is disposing of unwanted items, whether it’s heavy, difficult-to-move furniture or small, nagging items.

To try Hide from My Room™, download the Houzz mobile app from the Apple App Store℠ or Google Play™. (This feature is only available in the Houzz app from 12 a.m. - 12:01 a.m. local time on April 1.)

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Houzzer Profile: Ela Ganor, UI/UX Product Designer

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

As a member of the mobile development team based in Tel Aviv, Ela is responsible for the design and experience of the Houzz apps, on both the iOS and Android platforms. When she’s not at work, Ela enjoys hitting the beach or park to play volleyball, juggle, spin poi or Hula Hoop.

How did you get into design?
I’ve been drawn to design for as long as I can remember, doodling on every notebook or piece of paper available. Being a pretty geeky kid, I loved playing video games and spent countless hours exploring the wonderful place called “The Internet”. These passions drove me to get my bachelor’s degree in design and visual communication. From there, product design was a very natural career choice.

Why did you decide to join Houzz?
As a product designer, there are a few things that are important to me in a workplace. The product has to be interesting and challenging, there needs to be a team of talented people that inspire me, and the product needs to make a difference and have an impact. Houzz answered all of my criteria in the best way!

How would you describe the design process at Houzz? 
The design approach at Houzz is holistic, yet agile. The process starts with an initial idea, though in some instances, it is driven by an issue that requires attention. From there, we define exactly what we want to accomplish. These ideas come from a variety of sources, whether driven by our team’s creativity or requested by our community.

The designer leads the process by brainstorming new solutions via doodles on paper or a whiteboard. Then, the designer creates a prototype and gets feedback from the team and our Houzz community, before updating and iterating on the final design.

The design process never truly ends, as we always aspire to improve, get feedback and suggest simple and elegant solutions that continue to make a great product even better.

Since you’re based in Tel Aviv, how do you work with the design team based in Palo Alto? 
I am fortunate to be surrounded by very talented people here in the Tel Aviv office, as well as in Palo Alto. When collaborating with a remote team, communication is key. There are a lot of things to consider, as we need to share ideas, provide feedback, find answers and stay in sync. For that, we combine several different communication and collaboration tools and platforms for sharing design and prototypes. We always strive to increase transparency and evaluate new tools as they evolve.

What Houzz project are you most proud of?
We are working on some very cool updates for View In My Room, which I’ve been honored to work on with some of our best developers in the TLV office. It’s too soon to share the full details, but it’s going to be awesome so stay tuned!

What do you do when you’re not at work?
I love a good challenge, either physical or mental. Since I live by the beach, you’ll often find me there when I’m not working, either playing beach volleyball or just hanging out. I also enjoy juggling in the park, spinning poi and Hula Hooping. And of course, I’ll use any available piece of paper to paint or doodle.

How would you describe your personal home design style?
I try to reflect my personality in home design choices. It’s a combination of modern, vintage and contemporary pop. I really try to bring the space to life with lots of colors, art covered walls, plants, and DIY furniture that I built myself.