The Home Depot UX Design Internship
Role
UX Design Intern
Timeline
Jan 2021 - May 2022
3 semester-long projects
~30 weeks
Skills
Interaction Design
Product Thinking
Visual Design
User Research
Tools
Figma
UserTesting
Miro
WHAT I WORKED ON
Improving the tool rental reservation experience for THD customers and in-store associates
As part of The Home Depot’s OrangeWorks program, I worked as a UX Design Intern on three-semester long projects that focused on utilizing emerging technologies to improve the digital and physical store experience.
Projects included SMS texting for the tool rental reservation experience (shipped nationwide in August 2021; reduced customer no-shows and cancellations by ~30%) as well as kiosk and tablet in-store experiences.
Working at The Home Depot has provided me the opportunity to design end-to-end experiences, utilizing a service design approach when it comes to bridging the gap between the digital website and physical store. UX Designers on my team were also full-stack, so I got to conduct and lead my own user research.
this work is under NDA.
if you’d like to learn more about my work in detail or overall experience at The Home Depot, please shoot me an email :)
challenges & learnings
🔁 interconnected experiences (physical + digital)
Design extends beyond a 2d screen into the user’s environment, especially when it comes to physical retail stores.
I learned how to design cohesive experiences, from when the user makes a reservation on THD’s website -> communication during the rental -> dropping off and picking up the rental at the store.
🕵🏽♀️ digging deep to uncover root causes
Even if the UX is nearly perfect, an issue in any step of the customer-associate journey will compromise the overall experience.
Through user research, I uncovered the root causes behind poor UX metrics in areas such as tool inventory and associate behavior. This brought attention to other THD teams and shifted the product roadmap to prioritize current pain points.
OVERALL,
Compared to past internships or projects where I was solely designing a digital product that went straight to the consumer, designing for in-store associates challenged me to think in two different perspectives. I constantly thought about both the associates’ needs and how my designs could make their job more efficient, because ultimately their cooperation is essential to the customers’ experience.
I also loved being a part of The Home Depot’s tight-knit UX team and was really impressed by their strong team culture. It was also really awesome to meet so many designers that came from previous careers—elementary school teachers, UX recruiters, and marketing—these diverse backgrounds make the UX team at THD what it is today.
#thanks
The Home Depot was my first real #big-girl internship and I’m immensely grateful for all of the guidance and support the team gave me. Looking back to January 2021, I have grown so much as a designer and researcher, and the Rent Online Pick Up In-Store Team will always have such a special place in my heart.
Thank you to my UX partners Matt, Sabrina, and Steve for jamming on Miro and chatting during Coffee Connections; to my manager Andrea for truly being invested in my personal and career growth; to my recruiter Amanda for taking a chance on me and being a friendly face in the OW office; and to all of my XFN partners who attended my research readouts and participated in all of my UX workshops.
