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Shame on us at Design Basics! Sure, we were
already the nation’s
largest home plan design firm in terms of providing home plans
to professional builders and home buyers, but it wasn’t
until January, 2003 that we actually “got it.” Women
are the target market for homebuilders! Therefore, women
are ultimately our target market at Design Basics!
That revelation meant expanding our home plan
development research from discussions with building pros throughout the country to talking with home buyers directly. By the Spring of 2003, we began an ongoing series of consumer focus groups with women of all ages and backgrounds from around the country. When
it came to the topic of home plans, a revelation emerged that
would change the course of Design Basics. Rather than starting
with the elevation when looking at home plans, women often began
by looking at floor plans. Which begged the question, “How
do women look at home plans?” As we delved into this topic,
we learned women look at a plan to determine “how
the home lives.” Further research helped us realize
there were four primary filters through which women evaluate
designs: how the home entertains;
how the home helps her de-stress;
the flexibility of
the home’s design; and the home’s ability to address
her storage needs.
Turning the dream of building a home into reality can be a daunting
challenge, with thousands of decisions along the way. Choosing
a plan can be the most intimidating because it's often difficult
to visualize the finished home and how it will live. To make
it easy we have created a new way to present floor plans to help
you narrow the search for a design that fits your personal lifestyle
and needs.
Each Livability at a Glance™ floor plan is shown in a
color-coded version that highlights four different categories
especially important to women: Entertaining (yellow), De-Stressing (blue), Storing (orange)
and Flexible Living (green).
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