After realizing that most configurators tend to overwhelm rather than support users, I wanted to go a level deeper:
“Why do people who start using a configurator lose intent somewhere along the way?”
I’m still in the middle of figuring it out — open questions, unexpected behaviors, and useful contradictions.
This work was part of the early-stage research for my 2023 Home Configurator project — an interactive personalization tool built in Unreal Engine 5 to help users explore luxury homes digitally. It was a technically ambitious concept, but before investing deeper, I needed to validate if configurators were solving problems — or introducing new ones.
I wanted to test a strong hunch: that the typical real estate user journey — based on generic landing pages and basic 3D tools — leads to user friction, poor engagement, and rushed or misaligned appointments.
Instead of guessing, I wanted to hear from users directly:
What information are they missing?
Why do they drop off?
What do they expect from a tool like this?
These interviews were an attempt to spot blind spots in the experience and surface any assumptions I had baked into the tool without realizing it.
This research ran over 20 days during a live campaign that collected 200 Leads, which gave me direct access to real behavior — but it also came with constraints: no fancy usability lab, no incentives, no controlled segments.
Instead, I relied on a voluntary Typeform placed at a key moment in the funnel.
The upside: responses were raw and honest. The trade-off: the sample size was limited and slightly biased toward engaged users.