Ease
The light bulb section in Home Depot is a dark and confusing place. How might we improve this user experience?
Brand:
Home Depot
Role:
Design strategist
Category
Strategy, retail design
Improve the user experience in the light bulb aisle of Home Depot.
The light bulb section is a dark place.
It's visually overstimulating, jargon-dense, and near-impossible to navigate.
As a result, users feel lost, confused, and frustrated while shopping for light bulbs.
And no one likes to the the butt of a "how many people does it take to change a lightbulb" joke.
Home Depot is in the business of home improvement, not home i'm-not-sure-this-is-right-ment.
Recognizing the stress of home projects, Home Depot prioritizes top-notch customer service for educating and guiding users.
This human-centered approach is evident in the ethos of their store associates, but tends to be missing in their retail design.
Despite featuring many options per category, bays throughout the store lack clear organization, information on product differentiation, and usage instructions. Without a store associate there to help, it's easy to get lost.
In the light bulb aisle, user angst is the result of user ignorance.
We interviewed store representatives, contractors, and homeowners, and found that across the board, the average customer does not know what makes one light bulb different from the other.
This gap in user knowledge leads to the aforementioned chaos and confusion when it comes time to make a purchase decision.
However, users do arrive at the light bulb aisle knowing at least one thing for certain: what space they are trying to light.
To help users understand something new, you have to meet them where they are.
In the light bulb aisle, users don't know much. But if we design their in-store experience around the one thing that users do know, then we can present new information that builds on their preexisting knowledge and foster greater understanding.
Build an intuitive shopping experience that meets users where they are - equipping them with knowledge and empowering their purchasing decisions.
As light bulb novices ourselves, we began by determining what a user needs to know about a light bulb before purchasing it, and what's just nice to know.
There were two traits that fell into the "need to know" category: brightness and color temperature. These factors define how the light bulb looks in a space, and can make or break the ambiance and functionality of a space.
Color temperature describes how warm or cool a light appears. Warmer lights look yellow or orange, cooler lights look blue or white.
We also developed a complementary horizontal gradient (below) to visually represent color temperature.
While a user really only needs to know color temperature and brightness to properly light a room, there are a number of other factors that are nice to know. We created an icon system to reference important, yet non-essential, details about light bulbs.
We took this newfound knowledge of light bulbs and reimagined a more intuitive Home Depot shopping experience that meets users where they are.
In our redesign, we were led by the knowledge that users arrive at the light bulb section knowing what space they are trying to light.
"A light burned out in my bathroom, I need a new bulb for above the sink."
As users approach the space, they are greeted with images of familiar spaces - living rooms, kitchens, laundry rooms. They will be able to navigate towards the room whose style, ambiance, and function best matches the room in their home that needs a new bulb.
We transformed the classic Home Depot bays into pods. These pods reflect the types of spaces commonly associated with different variations of lightbulbs.
The pods are horizontally organized according to the horizontal color temperature gradient, which is displayed on the floor in conjunction with the pods. Users will find warmest lights on the left and coolest lights on the right.
Within the pods, bulbs are organized vertically according to our brightness gradient. Brightest bulbs at the top, least bright at the bottom.
Using the framework of our of intuitive gradient systems and retail design, we then reimagined HomeDepot's Ecosmart light bulb packaging.
Light bulb names are currently very confusing. What do you mean "daylight" refers to a BLUE light?!
We renamed Home Depot's Ecosmart light bulbs to better allude to the mood and function of the spaces with which they are most compatible.
The gradient systems are also reflected in the packaging of the light bulbs. We also included the "nice to know" icons vertically along the right side of the box to help users more easily find details about their specific bulb.
This new packaging also features a system of sticker to help with repurchasing the bulb and with recycling your bulbs. Forget Me Not stickers can be subtly placed on the side of a light fixture to help a user easily identify what type of bulb they were using in that light upon burnout.
Be real: who the hell knows what to do with a burned out light bulb? We all just take it out of the light, grapple with whether or not throwing it in the trash will release toxic waste, and ultimately decide to stick it back in the original box it came in. A few months later, when another light burns out, we can't remember which bulbs are dead.
Our Recycling Sticker System invites users to continue sticking their burned out bulbs back in the box, but helps them keep track of which bulbs are still good.
Simply place a Burnout sticker on a bulb that has burned out and stick it back in the box. Once all of the bulbs in the box are done, users can take this full box of dead bulbs back to the store and easily recycle them at a recycling station.
What I learned & who I learned with.
More than anything, this project challenged me in that it required I learn a ton about a product that I truthfully knew very little about. For a lot of our Brandcenter projects, we're asked to come up with a campaign for well-known products or services, almost always ones that we use regularly.
This was one of the few projects where I didn't know anything about how light bulbs work, and so research was critical to the success of this project. We went to the store to observe how people interacted with the aisle and its products. We connected with homeowners, contractors, store employees, DIY experts online, and everyone in between to figure out what exactly someone needs to know when buying a lightbulb. While sometimes it felt tedious, it was vital to our process of putting together a layout that was actually user-centered and featured interactions that benefitted the purchasing experience.
Anari Fleming (ST), Chelsea Glowacki (ST), Sarah Gray (ST), Anna Lyle Collett (XD), Cam Rogers (XD)
