Designing the Future of Home Customization
An experience strategy for a homebuilders design studio
Shane Homes engaged J5 to reimagine the experience of customizing a new home. Together, we explored how changing customer expectations, digital technology and uncertainty in the housing market could shape the future of its Design Studio.
Through customer research, future thinking, journey mapping and rapid prototyping, we developed a new customer journey and the processes needed to deliver it. The result was a flexible experience designed to help customers make meaningful decisions with greater clarity and confidence.
INDUSTRY
Construction
CLIENT
Shane Homes
WHY IT MATTERS
Personalizing a new home should feel exciting, but an overwhelming number of decisions can make the experience stressful and uncertain. Our research found that Shane Homes’ commitment to customization had gradually come at the expense of the overall customer experience.
We helped reframe the opportunity from catalogue customization, where value comes from offering more choices, to curated customization, where value comes from helping people make better choices. This created a more supportive experience for customers and a clearer, more adaptable model for the organization.
PROCESS HIGHLIGHTS
We used future thinking and rapid prototyping to explore how physical and digital tools could work together to transform the home customization experience.
We developed four customer archetypes, co-designed a future customer journey and created the supporting process required to bring the new Design Studio experience to life.
Impact
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User Level
Created a more guided customization experience designed around how different customers make decisions, manage budgets and navigate uncertainty.
Helped customers make more meaningful choices with greater confidence while preserving the ability to personalize their homes.
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Employee Level
Gave designers a clearer understanding of different customer behaviours and the type of guidance each person may need throughout the process.
Engaged the design team in testing future scenarios and identifying what would work in practice, building alignment and ownership around the new experience.
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Organizational Level
Shifted the strategic focus from offering the greatest breadth of choices to creating greater value through thoughtful curation.
Established a flexible vision for the Design Studio that can adapt to digitalization, changing customer expectations and future shifts in the housing market.