UX Case Study: Conscious Fashion by Eco-Stylist
Why can’t you feel great both inside and out? Is it because you know the fast fashion you’re rockin’ is literally muddying the waters? Well, fear not, Eco-Stylist is here to help bridge the gap from your closet to sustainable fashion.
Eco-Stylist was originally created to bring men into the sustainable fashion conversation. They’ve since become the premier style curator and brand proponent in the eco-conscious segment.
The Details
My esteemed colleagues and I were tasked to complete this design sprint in a span of 3 weeks. We used a myriad of tools like Google Workspace, Miro & Axure to collaborate and build our prototype. Our project lead (Whitney) even battled the Texas (Austin) frost and relocated to a friend’s home for electricity and running water. Despite the issues, we were able to deliver on our proposed timeline.
The Team
Whitney Watts| Project Lead
Bhimer Kahlom| Interactions Lead
Jill Maniscalco| Research Lead
We were provided the following user stories and crafted our research with these points as our North Star.
As a customer, I want to share my preferences and style so that I can receive personalized style and product recommendations
As a customer, I want to look through curated content so that I can discover new products
Research & Synthesis
We started our research by casting a wide net with feeler surveys. Our intent was to gauge the interest and awareness of both the stylist & eco-conscious markets. We received somewhere north of 60 responses and strategized our follow up interviews accordingly.
We then conducted a competitive analysis based on the feedback and the established names in the personal styling industy.
At this point in our journey we entertained the idea of highlighting the styling service as well as the free-n-easy returns in our redesign, however, we pushed forth with our 1-on-1 interviews to either confirm or deny our assumptions. In addition, we asked our interview subjects to give us a basic analysis of the website as it currently stands.
Affordability proved to be a consistent hurdle to sustainable clothing adoption, but an issue far larger than the reach of the design team. However, website filter functions, brand preference, easy returns & a cleaner layout were something we can design a solution for. In addition, StichFix’s business model of curated clothing packages was a consistent measure of success for our subjects. We decided to propose curated sustainable packages as a solution.
We constructed the user persona below to help us envision the final design and to keep us on-track. As you can see below, Esteban is someone who can benefit from the end to end services of a stylist.
Ideation & Development
We started with different ideas for what tabs should be included in the navigation bar. Based on our research, we all agreed that “Meet Our Stylists”, “Shop”, and “Why Shop Sustainably?” would be included in phase 1 of our ideation process.
Project Pivot
We quickly realized that the Eco-Stylist’s website serves more as a broker or agent rather than a direct e-commerce site. Our original solution was to introduce a subscription service but that would essentially re-write the business strategy since Eco-Stylist doesn’t have a hand in inventory handling (also eliminating easy returns ). With that in mind, we decided to focus on the current revenue verticals of the business while carving a name for eco-stylist in the personalized clothing industry. Shoppers can continue to shop for individual items on their website as they did prior (comission based earnings) but we wanted to put the styling services on the forefront. We would do so by adding a style quiz and creating a yelp-like stylist gallery to showcase their work and the feedback they’ve received.
In the interest of our time, we quickly converted our paper sketches into a minimum viable product to get to testing.
Usability Testing & Iterations
We recruited 6 individuals to conduct moderated user testing via Zoom. Testers were asked to navigate the website to take the sustainability quiz & find information about stylists. We compiled the feedback and the items below were consistent across the majority of testers and we adjusted accordingly.
Remove meet our stylist, replace with about tab
Style quiz- command, more prominent button
Change shop option to explore for better clarity
Swap “sustainable” for “why sustainability”
Sustainability video for explanation
Mid-Fi Prototype
The work of a designer is never done and there is always room for improvement. Given the timeline and the user problems presented, we feel confident that the solutions proposed provides a great foundation to continue to build upon.
Next steps
In the ever-growing industry of conscious consumption , Eco-Stylist can position themselves as a leader in the market. We recommend offering women’s and unisex clothing options as well as moving the business model towards a subscription service to increase revenue.
ECO-Stylist “Dress like you give a damn”
Conclusion
As a Jr. UX designer, I was eager to deploy the plethora of new tools to solve the task at hand. My knee-jerk reaction to solve vs. spending more time assessing the landscape (Eco-Stylist business model) proved to be a vital mistake. However, our agile team was able to pivot, regroup and execute to accomplish the task at hand. Note to self: Make yourself comfortable in the discovery phase.
This was also the first UX group project that I worked on. Sticking to our timeline and understanding each other’s working & communication style set the tone for the choppy waters we faced. It was an honor to work with both Whitney and Jill on this project and I hope to carry these positive lessons to future group work.