Design-Your-Own-Home Experience, Collection Builder, & AI Chatbot
Design Showcase of Various Toll Brothers Projects
Executive Summary
I led design for various major Toll Brothers initiatives, both internal and external. The three projects I selected showcase elegant UI built on problem solving. The redesign of the Design-Your-Own-Home module required thorough research into option dependency logic. The internal Collection Builder was designed with an MVP scope, but I made the extra effort to consider how things would visually scale as the library increases. Designing the AI Chatbot involved asking the hard question of how this experience actually improves upon the main site. Beyond the visuals, each project I showcase explores how my design thinking drives the UI.
Design-Your-Own-Home
For Toll Brothers, “choice” is a core to its luxury identity, However, the current home customization module has a major flaw. Many options had complex "conflict relationships" (e.g., selecting Option A disables Option B), yet the UI failed to communicate these dependencies. Users were left to rely on trial-and-error or dense tooltips, resulting in a frustrating experience that was particularly egregious on mobile.
To create a better solution, I researched 80 home designs that offer DYOH and indexed the relationship logic between options. I analyzed the underlying logic and established a proper framework.
Independent: Options that can be toggled independently of any other options.
Child: Options that can be toggled on if another independent option is toggled on.
Closed Conflict Group (OCG): 2+ Groups of options where only one option can be selected.
Sometimes, an option within a closed group can be an option bundle of 2 or more options. Options within a bundle must be independent of each other.
Open Conflict Group (CCG): Closed conflict groups with 3+ options but individual options within that group conflict with options outside of that group.
I then redesigned the module accordingly with a mobile-first approach. An internal AB test showed the new module being significantly more usable.
Collection Builder
As the company pivoted to more pre-selected builds and quick move-in home, the product team needed an internal tool to help construct collections of products. I partnered with a senior developer, and designed the desktop-only MVP wireframes from scratch, following 3 key requirements
Allow the user to create new collections.
Allow the user to select products to a collection
Allow the user to upload new products to the system.
During the process, we fleshed out some additional requirements.
Enable assigning locations when selecting products
Consider the draft, publish, and archive state flows
Create a mechanism to discourage duplicate uploads
One small extra feature I pushed for was the auto-generated Bento grid image system for the collection card. I designed this with scalability in mind by considering how users can easily identify collections in a packed library. The one large photo tile acts as the centerpiece, and the surrounding tiles communicate a collection's color and material palette
Select Features to Collection
Upload a Feature to System
Select Features to Collection
Upload a Feature to System
AI Chatbot
At time of writing, perception of AI chatbots are largely dependent on whether the chatbot can deliver results that improve upon the main site experience. If the site is already optimized to do a task, then an exact duplicate of the site in chatbot form is a horizontal or worse experience. I stated that the main value proposition of a Toll Brothers chatbot is to contextualize inquiries and adapt responses accordingly.
There are 4 predictable concerns that we expect users to have:
Location either at the Metro or State level: this should be the foundational concern that the MVP requires in an inquiry.
Price and other specs such as square footage, bedrooms, etc…
Move-In time
Amenities
For the MVP, I designed the chatbot, Tolley, as a guided home-search experience centered around these predictable concerns as context. To further differentiate the chat from the main site, I added an additional dimension of AI home comparison which the site lacks. Eventually, this feature would be a prime candidate to be folded into the main site.
User Inquiry and Tolley Response
Detail with Comparison Recommendations
User Inquiry and Tolley Response
Detail with Comparison Recommendations
