Role
I was brought on to the Dwellito team as a contractor to manage the configurator product and create a seamless end-to-end customer service for buying a modular home . Along the way, I contributed to the UX, UI, and development of the configurator and brought it from an MVP to a marketable product.
Team
Caleb Barclay - Co-Founder & CEO at Dwellito
Jon Walch - Co-Founder & CTO at Dwellito
Me - Design contractor responsible for UX UI design
What is Dwellito?
Dwellito (Dwell-ee-toh) exists to simplify the process of discovering and buying a modular home, online. It is a modular home marketplace that helps customers find a prefab home.
They are a small team that does the heavy lifting with 3 core services:
1) A vetted marketplace of the top prefabs to compare and buy
2) An end-to-end customer service for buying a home
3) Financing for your modular home.
Dwellito is creating a new SaaS product that is capable of visualizing modular homes customizations. That is when they enlisted my help in developing the new configurator tool.
A configurator is a tool where different variations of a product are represented, visualized, assessed and priced which starts a learning-by-doing process for the user.
Project Goals
• Develop a configurator product that visualizes, and prices modular home models and upgrades.
• Improve functionality and a create a frictionless customer experience for modular home buyers.
• Explore the use of 3D rendered modular homes with configurations rendered in real-time.
• Introduce mobile and tablet optimization.
• Introduce AR product visualization to increase eCommerce sales and engagement.
Result
We created an end-to-end eCommerce service for modular homes which allows customers to modify, explore, and buy their modular home with an image-based, 3D, and AR configurator.
Problem:
The traditional way of selling a customized modular home involves a sales team member sitting down with a client and explaining customization options, which costs the builders money if the customer doesn't end up buying a home.
Image-Based Configurator
Process work for the image-based configurator.
Solution:
With Dwellito's new configurator, customers personalize products to their precise demands without interventions from the sales team, thereby placing the decision in their hands. In this case, they will get exactly what they want in the end by engaging themselves in the design process.
It also allows clients to monitor the costs. Customers can control what they pay for the product as they customize, since different available options will reflect differently on the price of the product and they are able to see the change timely as every choice is made.
3D Configurator
Problem:
The image-based configurator is great for customers to play with different options, but it doesn’t allow customers to explore products from any angle, causing a gap between reality and expectations.
Process work for the 3D-based configurator.
Solution:
The 3D configuration provides a complete product understanding through interaction. Customers can view in real-time while the website owner receives an analysis on customer behaviors.
Customers personalize products to their precise demands without interventions from your business, thereby placing the decision in their hands. In this case, they will get exactly what they want in the end by engaging themselves in the design process.
Augmented Reality
Implementing AR functionality to the configuration allowed users to explore their new home more intimately and see what the product will look like in real life. This level of customer engagement helps the modular home sellers make more
Prototyping
The MVP really was the prototype for this project. We were working on a shoestring budget and working with various no-code solutions, which made our process extremely agile. Caleb, the founder designed and implemented the original set up, and we worked through the Webflow CMS to fill in the required information.
We tasked our engineers with optimizing a solution that will use webflow CMS data and push it to Vectary, which will turn a 3D model of the project into a real-time 3D configurator. All of this was done with minimal code.
We used Airtable as our online database that held the thousands of records of available model upgrades and material changes for each modular home.
Takeaways
Shoppers try products at home in real size and buy in confidence through augmented reality, directly from the eCommerce apps of retailers. Retailers and brands take online sales to a whole new level without worrying about 3D content scalability or AR developments.
