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Design Concept Project: Mobile Wardrobe App | B2C | Sustainability
Original digital wardrobe mobile app
Image credit: Unsplash
My role
Defining project scope and strategy
Content strategy
Conducting research
Delivering solutions through UX design methods and techniques
Deliverables
Project Concept
MVP Scope
User Research
Competitive Analysis
User Flows & Wireframes
Style Tile
Hi-fi mockup
Specifications
Duration:
3 weeks
Tools:
Framer, Figma, Photoshop, Microsoft Suite, Miro, Trello
My Team
Jon Mori, Jordan Davis, Sean Eng, Michelle Yee
Problem
Every year, more than 34 billion lbs of used textiles gets thrown out in the US
We own 66% more clothes now than we did 15 years ago (see the report here)
Clothes Overconsumption Habits
Overbuying
Discarding still wearable clothes
Lack of proper knowledge on real cost of textile industry
Lack of adequate organized storage/closet
Consumer Trends
People of higher income, spend about 76% more on clothes than people of lower income
Implications (*not a complete list)
Depletion of Resources
Economic Stress
Health Risks
Labor Inequality
Recommended Solutions
Environmental & Energy Study Institute (see in full here)
Buy less
Buy second-hand
Donate and trade unwanted clothes
Buy sustainable brands
Educate yourself
User Research
Goal:
Gain insights into clothes purchasing and wardrobe maintenance by a target user group.
Key findings of the primary research that consisted of 21 surveys and 5 one-on-one interviews.
Assessing Users' Mental Models
We conducted user research to better understand the mental model of young adults when it comes to their clothes shopping and wardrobe managing. After reviewing 21 survey responses and analyzing 5 one-on-one interview responses, I identified patterns that I distilled into the following shared characteristics of my target user base:
Mindset: Widespread uncertainty over what's in one's closet and confusion about styling and pairing clothes well.
When participants were asked "Do you know what's in your closet?", the majority gave uncertain replies and approximations. Many cited lack of organization or space in their closet.
Pain point: Not knowing exactly what's in one's closet and storing outdated, old, not fitting clothing.
75% consider buying new clothes easier than organizing and arranging their wardrobes.
Motivation: Low accountability-seeking behavior.
Several participants believe that it's not enough to have a closet full of clothes, one needs to know how to wear and style clothing which is a skill that's not easy to obtain.
Some of the barriers to higher accountability-seeking behavior are adequate and engaging tools of clothes organization & styling.
A paradigm shift from marginally controlling one's wardrobe through shopping to managing it through using nearly 100% of one's clothes.
An MVP that reflects pivoting away from following other people's outfits suggestions and ultimately, unnecessary spending, and towards sustainable preserving and reusing one's clothes.
Translating user needs into main features of 2The9's mobile app
The data we gathered led us to conclude that the biggest barriers were a lack of a system and distractions.
Additionally, we realized that the right amount of gamification will help further engage people who view wardrobe organization and clothes styling as chores.
Analyzing the competition
We studied several competitors to understand how they position themselves in the marketplace and discern their business models.
Model 1: The integrated digital clothes categorizer with additional services
The Save Your Wardrobe: Organizer (SYW), Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner (AI closet organizer) and Acloset mobile apps focus on clothes categorization and wardrobes. The differentiating factor is that SYW connects owners with clothes-related community services (alterations, dry-clean etc.), Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner has an AI fashion assistant feature and Acloset allows one to sell preloved items via messaging (no online store). All three platforms have strong sustainability aspect.
Save Your Wardrobe: Organizer and Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner (AI closet organizer) and Acloset mobile apps
Model 2: The marketplace
Depop, eBay, The Real Real and ThreadUp follow the second model — closet apps that function as a selling, buying, and trading marketplace. Their business model is geared towards enticing customers who look to update their closets and follow trends. They often offer social media outlets, lookbooks and outfit suggestions.
Backed by research, it became clear that 2The9s should follow the virtual closet organizer with additional services model.
We then proceeded to take a closer look at the structure and interface of three apps that best reflect the resource-sensible wardrobe ethos in their interface. They are Save Your Wardrobe: Organizer (SYW), Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner (AI Closet Organizer) and Acloset (AI Fashion Assistant) mobile apps.
Here is a breakdown of what each app does best:
Save Your Wardrobe: Organizer (SYW)
Save Your wardrobe: Organizer has the cleanest and tightest information architecture among the three wardrobe apps. This is accomplished by limiting navigation menu to four options and presenting the most valuable and engaging information (e.g., today's outfit, wardrobe tips etc.) on the Today/Home page. It also offers AI outfit suggestions feature.
Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner (AI closet organizer)
Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner offers the best structures wardrobe feature which boosts comprehensive search filters that take users’ lifestyles into account and integrated outfits calendar. Its in-Wardrobe tab bar navigation is conducive to the multi-tasking required to create a digital wardrobe.
Acloset - AI Fashion Assistant
Acloset has the best structure of its Closet/Home page: it offers users a weather widget for smart outfit selection and AI outfit suggestions and a look at the contents of its wardrobe. Acloset is the only competitor app among the three researched that made it the easiest top add clothes to a wardrobe — via its plus button that is located at the center of the bottom navigation menu.
Defining the target audience
We distilled the findings from user research into a user persona.
Defining the MVP
Product design goals
During the course of user research and competitive analysis, the following high-level product design goals emerged:
Design Goal 1: Reduce and/or eliminate friction at every step towards the formation of mindful clothing habits.
Supporting people on their journey towards taking control over their closet through accountable and caring actions entails removing friction at every step, such as cataloguing clothes, rotating outfits, servicing damaged clothes, and responsibly selling or donating no longer needed clothing.
Design Goal 2: Give clear, actionable information and encourage investment in one's progress.
The UI has to seamlessly transition users from planning and adding mode to wearing mode. Additionally, engagement to track one's progress towards a goal is critical in a habit-formation app. According to James Clear of "Atomic Habits", "One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress." Progress needs to be visualized and felt to be continued.
Feature prioritization
Features that provide high value to the largest amount of users (and thus encourage app adoption) receive the highest priority level. The base requirement of all user stories included in the MVP is that they must meet at least one high-level product design goal.
Medium-priority stories tend to significantly improve the overall personalized meal-planning experience, but are not critical to the functioning of the digital wardrobe app. Low-priority stories add to the enjoyment of the experience, but only cater to a small or niche group of users.
User stories and the MVP
The final MVP consists of a mix of high, medium, and low-priority user stories for a product that will provide enough value to attract early adopters. Below are 13 user stories that make it to the MVP.
View the complete list of user stories.
Content Structure
Message Architecture
Defining the target user group and the MVP feature scope enables us to refine the ways in which to communicate the product's primary differentiators. By identifying the top product features that add the most value to the user, we were able to create a preliminary skeleton of the page's contents.
Positioning
A user-focused mobile digital wardrobe app from a sustainable perspective—available to users free of charge.
A wardrobe organizing tool for those who seek to take control of their closet and clothing spending by optimizing their wardrobe (cataloging, organizing clothes and creating outfits), available free of charge to all who need a soft form of accountability during a transition to a more sustainable way to care for one's clothes.
Value Proposition 1
AI assisted wardrobe organization and outfit-planning based on user's needs and preferences.
By assisting with cataloguing and organization of user's wardrobe, 2the9s will create daily outfit recommendations based on user's situational needs and weather conditions.
Value Proposition 2
Decrease the obstacles to wardrobe optimization as much as possible.
2the9s allows users to add clothes, create various wardrobes and collections. It even helps with taking care of one's clothes beyond their daily wear — by allowing flagging clothes for services, sale or donation.
Value Proposition 3
Offer a tool to track one’s progress.
An interactive progress tracker allows users to track their progress towards their wardrobe optimization goals. Users engage in AI suggested fashion challenges based on their wardrobe statistics/data (e.g., cost per use, number of scheduled outfits etc.)
Learning from the Competitors
We examined how the three top competitors in the mobile digital wardrobe space structure their pages.
Here is a comparison between Save Your Wardrobe: Organizer, Open Wardrobe Outfit Planner and Acloset's home page structures:
Comparison Summary
The ratio of feature set to CTAs in the analyzed apps varies greatly, in part due to apps' MVP and different default home pages.
In terms of navigation, Acloset has the most compelling navigation bar which facilitates adding clothes.
Informed by research data, we synthesized our best ideas to define the most important features of the 2the9s — wardrobe cataloguing, outfits, and services — via user flows.
Structuring the Home Page
The home page structure of 2the9s features an almost 1:1 ratio between feature set and CTAs. We opted to remove Features 4 and 5 from the page-flow in order to cut down on potential time-sinks features and give the outfit related tasks all the room to take center stage.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Based on the defined user stories and user flows we came up with the following mid-fidelity prototype; some of the screens were as follows:
Visual design
The Origin of the Name
The name ‘2the9s’ is chosen because the idiom "dressed to the nines" means to be dressed to the highest degree, smartly, and fashionably. It suggests that a person has taken great care in their appearance and chose attire that is suitable for an occasion. We wanted to emphasize one's well-executed style over simply a location (as in case of Open Wardrobe or Acloset) or a function (e.g, Wardrobe Tracker or Outfit Planner).
Here are a few of the other name alternatives considered:
Logo Design
Unlike letters and graphics, numbers are still a new solution in a logo design. Interpreting the app name "to the nines" through numbers was a natural solution. The lockup logo (aka combination logo, or a logomark + wordmark logos) was created to strengthen our brand's visual appeal and clear communication.
Initial (left) and final logos.
Style Tile
For the visual layer of our app design, we consulted the psychology of color and picked stimulating and modern colors - plate purple, tangerine orange and cerulean blue.
2The9's style tile.
Design Iterations
We validated and iterated on our designs by testing our mid-fidelity prototype with users that fit our target audience. We created a user testing protocol, in which we had laid out 4 tasks for the users to perform.
Users' feedback and the level of completion of user testing tasks necessitated the following completed iterations:
Users had trouble understanding the exact function/-s of the plus icon in the menu. We upgraded it from a single-function "Add Clothes" into a multi-functional add button via a pop-up window.
Users found the duplicate plus icon distracting and not clear and the steps for adding clothes to Wardrobe to numerous. We eliminated the duplicate and lowered the number of steps for the function.
Users felt that the buttons "Create an Outfit" and "Tania's Styling" needed to stand out and be more clear. We expanded them into cards and added explanations.
Users felt that there should be a different way to display pre-sorted for services clothes. We introduced 2 browsing sources: "Wardrobe" (all clothes) and "Piles" with previously marked for services clothes.
Users felt that there should be a different way to display pre-sorted for services clothes. We introduced 2 browsing sources: "Wardrobe" (all clothes) and "Piles" with previously marked for services clothes.
Listen to Preferences
Users felt that the buttons "Create an Outfit" and "Tania's Styling" needed to stand out and be more clear. We expanded them into cards and added explanations.
Accessibility Considerations
We consulted WCAG SC Standards to assure that the design complies with best practices and meets accessibility requirements. Some of the practices we implemented using table format for data information, contrast b/w background and foreground, content spacing and heading, and different designs for different viewport sizes, and labeled, scalable elements.
2The9s offers multiple ways to take control over your wardrobe. Take charge through cataloguing and organizing, styling and scheduling outfits.
2The9s offers multiple ways to optimize your clothes.
Pair clothes, schedule outfits or go with Tania's, our AI stylist's, suggestions.
2The9s provides ways to extend life of and preserve your clothes.
Be on a course to a more sustainable wardrobe and curb clothes spending.
2The9s AI stylist can help you to enhance your style and manage your wardrobe.
AI stylist Tania is the for you to make the journey to organized and optimized closet fun.
Take fashion challenges and see your progress.