Collov Home Design
B2C Web
Collov Home Design is a B2C online interior design platform that simplifies and personalizes the home décor process by offering affordable 3D design services and curated furniture recommendations—all in one seamless experience.
As the Lead UX/UI Designer managing a team of three, I led the end-to-end design of the product while driving cross-functional collaboration with engineering, marketing, interior design, and sourcing teams across the U.S..
MY ROLE
Lead UX/UI designer
TIMELINE
Apr.2020 — Aug.2020
TOOLS
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Principle, and After Effects.
OUTCOME
Fully shipped end-to-end design of web experience
Understanding Collov’s Business Model
Collov provides affordable interior design services, generating revenue through the sale of furniture featured in each design proposal.
The web platform allows users to browse inspiration photos, take a style quiz, submit design requests, and manage ongoing projects. Complementing this, the AR app helps users accurately measure their rooms and create detailed floor plans. On the backend, a dedicated portal enables interior designers to efficiently manage and deliver user projects.
Pain Points
Customer Pain Points
· Providing requirements is time‑consuming
· Projects move too slowly
Interior Designer Pain Points
· Too many revisions
· Inefficient communication via email
The Design Goal
How might we create a more efficient and guided workflow that reduces back-and-forth communication, shortens project timelines, and improves clarity between customers and interior designers?
The Results
DISCOVERY
User Research
The design team analyzed 50 user cases to uncover pain points in the Collov service experience. I also spent two weeks shadowing the interior design team to understand their workflow and challenges.
An example of a customer’s pre-design email
I reviewed customer emails, highlighting and summarizing key requirements shared before the design phase.
A typical response email from an interior designer
Interior designers manually copied and pasted furniture links from external websites into emails for customers to review and choose from.
DISCOVERY
Key Findings
The email content can be categorized into three main types:
Overall style requirement
Requirements of a specific item
Provide more room information
DEFINE
User Flow
Based on the findings, I started to revise the user flow.
DEFINE
Block Wireframe
Based on user flow, I sketched the block wireframes. I listed all the features on each page and got early development estimation from the developer team.
DESIGN
Generic onboarding questionnaires slowed communication between designers and customers
Through user interviews, competitive analysis, and discussions with our interior design team, I found that simple, generic questionnaires (e.g., “Which room do you want to design?” or “What’s your preferred style?”) often failed to capture customers’ actual needs. This led to unsatisfying design proposals or required lengthy follow‑up exchanges to clarify details.
To solve this, we gathered more specific information upfront and tailored the questionnaire by room type. For example, a kid’s room required a very different set of details than a master bedroom, enabling us to better understand and address each space’s unique needs.
DESIGN
Object detection helps designers uncover customer intent in inspiration photos
During user interviews, many participants expressed interest in specific items within inspiration photos but didn’t know how to identify or source them.
To solve this, I proposed using object detection to identify furniture pieces directly within the images. This helped designers better understand customer preferences and select suitable items for each design proposal. I also created a prototype in Principle to help developers visualize the intended user experience.
DESIGN
Getting accurate needs from customers.
Budget breakdown — In addition to setting an overall budget, customers often have individual budgets for each major furniture item.
To support this, we collaborated with the interior design team to define the essential pieces for each room type and established default budget ranges for each item under various pricing tiers.
DESIGN
Project Dashboard
DESIGN
Design System
I built the design system from scratch and maintained the Figma component library.
DESIGN
Branding
Thoughts and Takeaways
Working at a fast-paced startup was both fun and rewarding, especially seeing how we transformed the interior design process. I took on responsibilities beyond design—covering much of a PM’s role and supporting customer service as well. It was a rare opportunity to gain a holistic view of a large-scale project while collaborating with people from diverse backgrounds—a truly irreplaceable experience.