The Design Within Reach FLOR Designer

Design Within Reach sells high-end designer home furnishings, yet their biggest problem was with their cheapest product: InterfaceFLOR tiles. Returns were high, and sales were not to expectations. Fluid, Inc. was approached with the mandate of a web application that would triple revenue across all channels, from the Web to in-store sales.

As the lead conceptual and interaction designer, I helped create the FLOR Designer, a tool that allows a customer to be inspired by existing rugs, modify these rug designs, create their own rugs, and see them previewed in 2D and 3D all within a Flash application. We started by analyzing their sales data and studying purchase patterns, determining how broad or narrow the user's options would be and where to reinforce a greater confidence in the FLOR product. We tightly collaborated with Design Within Reach's web team to gather current usage data, to find test subjects, and to integrate against their Cold Fusion commerce engine.

I designed this project's user profiles, use case scenarios, the product architecture, screen wireframes, and its interaction patterns. I also conducted high-fidelity protoype testing sessions against users who fit our user profiles.

The very talented Mark Moskal of Fluid executed the final visual design you see here.