MOBILE APP
Under the guidance of my tutor at Academy Xi, I developed Styleme.n - an initiative aimed at helping young men improve their fashion sense.
The project ambition involves partnering with fashion experts, stylists, and brands to assist men in discovering their personal style without expending too much effort.
Studies have shown that men who tend to dress better are seen as more competent and confident, which gives them a competitive advantage over others. The problem is that young adult males are aware of this competitive advantage, but are unsure of where to start when it comes to dressing better.
Therefore, I have refined the Problem Statement as below:
Users are men in the age range of 18-35 who want to dress better to enhance their confidence, but are unsure where to begin due to the lack of knowledge of dressing rules, but do not want to complicate things.
In order to conduct comprehensive research on the app's users and not based on my cognitive bias, I planned a Scoping Framework in order to meet the time constraint and to cover all the steps in the Double Diamond framework. I would come back to the framework to check if my initial assumptions were accurate.
I conducted 20 surveys to gather a rough idea of their preferences and habits. This survey data provided valuable initial insights into their needs and behaviours.
Additionally, we performed a thorough analysis of competitors to assess the existing products available in the market. This analysis helped us understand the competitive landscape and identify opportunities for differentiation.
To gain deeper understanding, I conducted one-on-one interviews with 5 potential users. These interviews allowed me to delve into their pain points and challenges, providing me with firsthand insights into their needs and desires.
By combining survey data, competitor analysis, and user interviews, we were able to gather comprehensive information about men's dressing behaviour, their pain points, and the market landscape. These findings serve as a solid foundation for informing our design decisions and creating a tailored solution that addresses their specific needs.
After conducting survey and interviewing, I gathered qualitative information about my users and group it by category so that I could understand how young men made decisions when it comes to dressing and buying clothing items.
Users are complex. In order to deeply understand their needs, behaviours and motivations, I came up with a Multiple-Users Empathy Map.
Insight 1: Men tend to avoid complication when it comes to dressing. Dressing needs to be quick, simple and comfortable.
Insight 2: They only stick to some familiar and favourite brands.
Insight 3: They do not often actively buy clothes.
Insight 4: Colours need to be neutral.
Insight 5: They have little knowledge about the concept of capsule wardrobe.
Insight 6: They find it hard to mix clothing materials.
Insight 7: Younger men often have dressing inspirations from social media influencers and artists they like and they are less reluctant to change.
Insight 8: T-shirt is the most popular and easiest to wear item.
Tim a typical user for my app. Interviewing him helped me gain a lot of understanding on his expectations, concerns and motivation. He represents Gen Z - a generation of digital-savvy users with specific hobbies, interests and consumer behaviours.
After all the research, I came up with 3 main questions around the user’s needs:
How might we help young men (users) identify a suitable style in a confident manner?
How might we make the change seem possible to them?
How might we make dressing simple but still effective?
Storyboarding provides a holistic representation of Tim's typical clothing browsing and shopping journey, offering a comprehensive overview from the initial exploration phase to the final purchase decision. This visual narrative encapsulates Tim's actions, interactions, and decision-making process, providing a general understanding of how he navigates through various stages, ultimately leading to his selection of clothes that he deems suitable. By capturing the complete user journey, the storyboard offers valuable insights into Tim's experiences and aids in identifying opportunities for improvement and enhancing the overall user experience.
This User Flow captures the general process of a user going through the app to look for some style ideas, then selects and saves his favourites content. The process ends when he decides to purchase a specific item.
In short, my app focuses on some factors:
Simple and user-friendly: The app would act as an agency rather than a stand-alone brand
Interactive and engaging: The app will also be able to assist users in decision making
One-stop shop app: The app will offer an A-Z process from selecting a style, try-on items and eventually purchasing.
These wireframes demonstrate some UI elements on the key pages of the app. They help me test my ideas and get feedback on the app's functionality.
I chose a neutral, inclusive colour palette since the app isn't a brand but acts as an agency to guide users toward the right direction for styling. A colour scheme of white and black would be appropriate in this case. Yet for some UI elements, a light orange colour would be a powerful way to emphasise features or actions without being too ostentatious.
Looks
Users will find some style ideas from this page. There are various clothing themes for different types of users' needs and preferences. I hope to popularise the Capsule Wardrobe concept which is a cost effective and simple way to style. By having only a few basic items that can be mixed and matched to create several outfits, users can practice sustainability in fashion.
Learn
By simply pressing the Learn tab, users can access some basic dressing guidelines as well as tips and tricks. I got lots of inspiration from fashion Youtubers as their content has been a valuable and easily accessible source for many young men to learn about dressing, instead of old ways of fashion magazines.
Create + Virtual Try On
This page is intended to let users build their own wardrobe by selecting the clothing items they desire with Virtual Try On option for some items.
Virtual Try On feature is an interactive mobile experience that uses augmented reality that helps users visualise how a clothing item would look like from every angle to help inform purchasing decisions. Although this feature hasn't been popular due to the high cost of the technology, Virtual Try On is expected to be the future of online shopping for the fashion industry.
Welcome
Users will find some style ideas from this page. There are various clothing themes for different types of users' needs and preferences.
Onboarding
By onboarding users and gathering information about their personal details, lifestyles, hobbies, and more, we can gather data to provide personalised styling recommendations that are most suitable for them.
Despite the limited timeframe of 6 weeks during the course, I was unable to fully implement all the planned features to bring the app to completion, as well as conducting user testing to validate the design concept. However, here are the proposed next steps for future development:
"Community" feature: Introduce a dedicated page where users can actively engage and share knowledge with each other regarding fashion trends and daily styling tips. This will foster a sense of community and enhance user interaction within the app.
Online shopping integration: Collaborate with various brands to establish a built-in online shopping experience within the app. This all-in-one solution will enable users to conveniently browse and purchase fashion products directly from within the app, providing them with a seamless shopping experience.
These future developments will further enhance the app's functionality and user experience, making it a comprehensive platform for users.
