- 2 -
Silk Circle
September 2022, ~3 months
In collabration with Valentine Sénégas
Product Design
Research Creation
Sustainability
THE PROBLEM
The lack of awareness of garment waste and issues related to fast fashion
The problem that we wanted to address was the issue of ast fashion and its negative impact on the environment.f We wanted to create an app that could inform individuals about the environmental effect of the garments they own and encourage them to make more sustainable clothing purchasing practices.
High-fidelity prototype
If you buy a book, you are probably goign to finish it. However, if bookmark a website, chances are, you will forget about it in a week. Self-motivating is hard. How can I help people read previously published but high quality blogs?
Product Preview
App overview
USER RESEARCH
Use user research to guide the product direction
To create the app, we conducted preliminary research on the issue of sustainable fashion. We explored related issues and learned more about the fashion industry, its impact on the environment, and the consequences of human actions. We conducted two surveys to verify the impact of our app on our testers.
The first survey was completed to learn more about what they already knew about the fashion industry, and the second was completed after interacting with the app. The objective was to verify if the users had more general knowledge and intentions of changing their clothing consumption habits.
User research helped determine our product vision.
DEFINING GOALS
Find a common ground in user goals and business goals
Initially, we planned to develop a platform for buying and selling clothes to promote a sustainable circular economy. However, we shifted our focus to educating users about the clothing industry to raise awareness and encourage sustainable purchasing practices. Our goal is to spark a change in behavior and intentions. Our research question is: How can technology promote sustainable clothing purchasing practices?"
Achieving a balance and finding a common ground in user and idea goals.
Spotlighting Actions
Making the individuals hold responsibility!
Implimenting feature like giving them a score of their exact closet will make them more aware of their garments
closet feature and tips
DESIGN DECISIONS
Use strategies to help users maximize their learning
There are multiple ways to measure whether users are maximizing their learning experience in Silk Circle: Such as how many garments they added to their closet, the improvement of their closet score etc. Those features are strategies to achieve the goals of the app through design.
Creating an awesome reading experience through visual design
We decided to use Inter for all the typography in this app, because I want a typeface that everyone finds familiar and has great legibility. We also used different font weights, colors, and sizes to create a clear information hierarchy.
REFLECTIONS
The creation of the app was a challenging process, and we had to make some changes to our initial project idea and research question. However, through our research and design process, we were able to create an app that addresses the core of our research question and encourages sustainable clothing purchasing practices. We believe that our app will help people to become more aware of the issues of fast fashion and take action towards a more sustainable future. Three main lessons I learned from this project are:
- The sky is the limit, but with technical and time constraints, I learned to prioritize features that provide most value to users;
- Consider human factors to enhance the UX: the “fat finger” problem, Fitts’ Law;
- Visual design is a crucial part of the overall experience, especially when the function of the app is heavily dependent on the information hierarchy and legibility of the content.