Kitchen & Bathroom Matchmaker Tool
Why did we create the Matchmaker?
As the UX Manager at Wickes, I was invited to work with key stakeholders on an exciting new kitchen and bathroom matchmaker tool. The purpose of the project was to design a visual quiz so that a customer could be ‘matched’ to their ideal kitchen style or bathroom style before they came to a design appointment in store. We had two main goals for the project:
- To inspire & engage users on socials and web to attract more potential kitchen & bathroom customers. Wickes lacked inspirational content at the consideration stage of the marketing funnel. Customers arriving on the site often had a vague sense of what they wanted but no clear vision for their space. Without anything to spark that imagination, they left the site – turning to competitors or Pinterest boards instead of a design consultation.
- To save time for our design consultants when talking to customers in-store by giving them some key information to start the design consultation. DCs were going into appointments largely blind. They had no insight into a customer’s style preferences before sitting down with them, which meant valuable consultation time was spent on discovery that could have happened earlier in the journey.
What was my role in this project?
I was responsible for defining the UX vision for the Matchmaker tool and ensure that both user needs and business objectives were reflected in the final experience. I worked closely with the Product Owners for Kitchens & Bathrooms to align stakeholders across the business, and collaborated with UX Designer Ella on the visual and interaction design.
The core challenge was threefold:
- Design a quiz experience that felt genuinely inspiring
- Create a UI that felt premium and distinctive – familiar enough to feel like Wickes, but elevated enough to signal a special experience
- Ensuring the results page led seamlessly to the next step: booking a design consultation and automatically sending the DC their results. We also wanted to give the customer the ability to print out their results or email themselves their results for their own reference.
We partnered with 3D Cloud, who had already delivered a similar product for Lowe’s in the US, giving us confidence in the technical foundation. My focus was on making it right for Wickes customers specifically.
How did we approach delivery?
With research insights already in hand from the CX manager, I defined the overall UX vision: a five-question quiz that felt curated and conversational, covering style, layout and desired features, and ending with a set of personalised recommendations tailored to the customer’s answers. The information architecture needed to feel effortless – each question building naturally on the last, with no dead ends or confusing branching logic.
During our first major kick-off meeting with 3D Cloud, I voiced that there were two key internal stakeholders that needed to be involved due to their technical expertise. It was also clear that some development on Wickes’ side was going to be required in order to achieve our second goal. I helped translate business requirements – from the development team, our DCs, and senior stakeholders – into user-centred journey decisions. This included agreeing on how quiz results would connect directly to the consultation booking flow, so that a customer’s style choices could be shared with their DC before the appointment even began.
We wanted it to feel different…
Working with Ella, I helped design a UI that felt premium and distinct from the standard Wickes website aesthetic. We wanted the Matchmaker to signal to customers that this was a different kind of experience – more editorial, more considered – while still being unmistakably Wickes. The result was a clean, visually-led quiz interface that put inspiring imagery front and centre.
After launch, I used Contentsquare to monitor how real users were interacting with the tool in the wild. This surfaced an important insight: users were hesitating over Matchmaker entry-point banners on the wider site because the banners didn’t look sufficiently clickable. Customers were pausing on them rather than tapping through. I identified this hesitation pattern, flagged it, and fed it back to the team so that the CTAs had a higher level of affordance (i.e. click-ability). I feel like this was a clear example of how post-launch UX analysis can fix something that may look insignificant but helps curious users make clear decisions.
How does it work?
The customer is asked questions such as “What finish appeals to you?” and “What layout best aligns with your vision?” and then the customer simply selects the images of their desired finishes and layout. Each question has limits of how many images can be selected. For example, when asked to “Choose your favourite colours”, you can select up to three colours; however, you must select at least one to continue the quiz. Once you have answered all of the questions, you are presented with your kitchen or bathroom ‘style match’ based on the preferences you selected. This covers everything from cabinet styles and worktops to pendant lighting and layout. You then have the option to either “Book a design appointment”, “Email results”, “Print results” or “Retake quiz”.
If the customer selects, “Book a design appointment” they are taken to the Book Design Services page. The URL is then populated with the visitor ID and quiz ID to ensure that the design consultant sees the customer’s results.
What did we achieve?
The Wickes Kitchen & Bathroom Matchmaker launched in December 2024 and was covered across retail trade press including Insight DIY and The Retail Bulletin, positioning it as a game changer for the home improvement sector.
Customer experience: Users report that the tool feels inspiring and easy to use. The five-question format removes decision fatigue, and the personalised results — — give customers a cohesive starting vision they can genuinely get excited about.
Design Consultant experience: DCs report that appointments are now better qualified. Customers arrive having already articulated their style preferences through the quiz, which means consultation time can be spent on design detail rather than starting from scratch. The ability to share quiz results directly with a DC before an appointment has meaningfully improved the quality of that first conversation.
What did I take away from this project?
This project reinforced something I believe strongly: that meaningful UX work often happens where inspiration and practicality intersect. The Matchmaker wasn’t just a quiz, it was a new entry point into the Wickes design journey. For the user, it needed both the emotional experience (“does this make me excited about my kitchen?”) and the functional outcome (“does this move me towards booking?”). A few specific reflections:
Stakeholder alignment is UX work. Getting senior stakeholders the product owners and 3D Cloud to agree on how the tool should connect to the broader customer journey was as important as any wireframe I produced. The UX vision only lands if the whole business is pointing in the same direction.
Post-launch is where the real learning starts. Finding about banner hesitation on Contentsquare post-launch wasn’t something any amount of pre-launch research would have caught with certainty. You need to invest the time to monitor real user behaviour after go-live, and the pay-off is usually worth it.
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