Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Digital Shopping
Imagine walking into a vast furniture showroom, overwhelmed by the sheer number of
options. You love a particular sofa, but you're unsure if it will fit in your living room or
match your decor. What if there was a way to see how it would look in your space before making
the purchase?
This was the core challenge faced by FurnishSpace, a Sweden-based
multinational home furnishings retailer. While the brand was globally recognized,
it struggled with an increasingly digital consumer base that demanded convenience,
personalization, and confidence in their purchasing decisions. Customers wanted to visualize
products in their homes before committing to a purchase, but the traditional shopping experience
couldn’t fulfill this need.
Recognizing this, I led the research, strategy, and development
of an innovative Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) mobile
application that would completely redefine how customers interacted with furniture.
The goal was to create an immersive, seamless, and intuitive shopping
experience that allowed users to place furniture in their homes
virtually while maintaining high design standards and scalability.
A Seamless Blend of Physical and Digital
To bring this vision to life, I took a human-centered approach,
starting with extensive user research to understand customer pain points. Why did
customers hesitate to buy furniture online? What stopped them from making quick
decisions? How could technology simplify the experience without feeling intrusive?
From research insights, I designed a roadmap for an AR/VR-enabled app that would
enable customers to:
Explore furniture collections digitally with 360° views
Place virtual models of furniture in their space using AR
Experience fully immersive showroom environments using VR
Make data-driven purchasing decisions based on accurate
visualizations
Crafting a Scalable and Intuitive Product
Developing an app with cutting-edge AR/VR features came with its fair share of
complexities. To ensure a smooth and efficient development process, I
structured my approach into three key phases:
Research & Strategy
Conducted in-depth user interviews and surveys to identify
core pain points in furniture shopping.
Analyzed competitor apps and identified gaps in AR/VR experiences.
Worked closely with engineers and data scientists to evaluate
technical feasibility of AR/VR implementations.
Created low-fidelity wireframes to map out user journeys
and interactions.
Design System & Development
Designed a scalable and reusable design system for AR/VR
elements to ensure developer and designer efficiency.
Built a Figma file structure that could handle
complex, heavy design loads for various furniture models.
Used StoryBook for rapid component testing and iteration,
reducing development time significantly.
Developed a seamless UI/UX flow, ensuring that even
non-tech-savvy users could navigate the app effortlessly.
Testing & Iteration
Conducted A/B testing with real customers to fine-tune the
AR accuracy and UI design.
Implemented eye-tracking analysis to optimize VR
interactions and improve user engagement.
Collaborated with engineers to ensure realistic lighting, textures,
and spatial alignment in AR models.
Focused on performance optimization, ensuring that even
complex 3D furniture models loaded quickly without lag.
Features & Functionality
To create a truly immersive and user-friendly experience, the app was built around
three core features that worked in harmony:
A Smarter Way to Browse
One of the most common frustrations in furniture shopping is sifting through
thousands of products. Discover Furniture made this process easier by offering:
Intelligent Search & Filters: Users could browse by style,
color, size, price range, or category.
Personalized Recommendations: AI-driven suggestions based
on browsing history and preferences.
Save & Compare: Customers could bookmark their favorite
pieces and compare them side by side.
Social Sharing: Users could share images of furniture with
family and friends for feedback before purchasing.
This feature acted as the first step in a seamless funnel, allowing users to
shortlist products before experiencing them in AR/VR.
Examining Every Detail Before Buying
A key aspect of luxury shopping is attention to detail. To replicate this
experience digitally, the 360° View feature enabled customers to:
Rotate furniture models in all directions to inspect
craftsmanship and textures.
Zoom into fine details like stitching, material grains,
and finishes.
View furniture in different lighting conditions, mimicking
real-world environments.
Switch between color and material variants instantly.
This feature not only increased user confidence in purchase
decisions but also reduced return rates by ensuring customers had
a realistic expectation of the product.
Bringing Furniture into Your Home
The game-changer of the app was its AR
integration, allowing users to virtually place furniture in their living spaces.
This feature offered:
True-to-scale AR models for accurate size estimation.
Real-time room scanning, adapting furniture placement to
space dimensions.
Move, rotate, and resize functionality for perfect
positioning.
Multi-piece setup, enabling users to see how multiple
items fit together.
One-tap purchase directly from the AR view.
This feature was instrumental in bridging the trust gap for
online furniture shoppers, as they could visualize their selections in real-world
context before making a purchase.
Tangible Impact on Business & Customers
The AR/VR app was a massive success, not only improving customer experience but
also driving significant business impact:
Customers loved the intuitive,
immersive shopping experience.
91.5% Boost in User Engagement
The interactive nature of AR/VR
led to longer session durations and repeat usage.
Testimonial
The introduction of the FurnishSpace AR/VR app revolutionized our home
furnishings shopping experience, enabling customers to explore our products in a
realistic virtual environment, making informed buying decisions, and driving our sales
growth. We are immensely proud of the work accomplished and grateful to everyone who
contributed to this project's success.
Mr. R. T.
CTO
Expanding Immersive Retail
The success of the FurnishSpace app paved the way for future innovations in
immersive retail. Based on customer feedback and data insights, the roadmap
included:
AI-powered room recommendations, suggesting furniture
that complements existing decor.
Integration with smart home devices, enabling
voice-controlled browsing.
VR-based store walkthroughs , offering a complete digital
showroom experience.
By leveraging AR and VR technologies, I helped transform a traditional,
showroom-dependent industry into a dynamic, digital-first experience. Through
thoughtful design, rigorous research, and scalable execution, this project not
only elevated the brand's customer experience but also set a new benchmark for the future of
immersive commerce.
