Outfit of the day - OOTD
Problem : For many people, One second you’re in front of your closet and the next you’re surrounded by a sea of clothing. Clearly the problem isn’t that we have nothing to wear—it’s often that we don’t know what we have and end up wearing the same five outfits on repeat or decide to go for shopping to buy new outfits which is time-consuming, inconvenient and expensive.
Context : Fast Fashion is a term used by fashion retailers to describe inexpensive designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to meet new trends. While fast fashion is convenient for shoppers, one of the results of fast fashion is a large amount of textile waste from shoppers treating clothing as more disposable than they may have previously done. Additionally, shoppers are more apt to spend more money on clothing to keep up with trends. The result of fast fashion is textile waste.
Scope : For the project, I defined my scope to cut down on the textile waste that comes with “fast fashion” or shoppers boredom with wardrobe.
Objective : How to come up with an user outfit planning, which is time-efficient, convenient and inexpensive?
Solution
OOTD app can help users to organize wardrobes and find an outfit with the touch of a button.
It helps shoppers to cut down on the textile waste that comes with “fast fashion” or boredom with wardrobe.
Helps to spend quality time figuring out looks ahead of time (like when watching Netflix) instead of just throwing them together at the last minute.
When you wake up late, you can have a excellent outfit ideas to choose from without even trying.
You can clone outfits and try mixing in different items so you can get as many outfits as possible to save money from “fast fashion” or being bored with wardrobe.
How it works?
Outfit of the day is a virtual closet service representing the user’s real clothes that features a virtual styling assistant to develop a user’s personal style. The application tracks a user’s wardrobe and outfit habits to make intelligent suggestions on potential outfits. Information on the user’s current wardrobe is fed in the system. Users can create an avatar to model outfit combinations without having to go into their closet and try on or remove clothing. The application also helps users plan outfits throughout the week and for special occasions.
Process Overview
Discover - Brainstorming
I started initial brainstorming session to generating requirements early on and to understand about what the application might look and feel like and what it should do.
Contextual Inquiry
The design process started with the analysis phase which further had sub-activities such as contextual inquiry, contextual analysis for studying user behavior, from which gathered the needs of our system. I extracted requirements from contextual data. The requirements included interaction design requirements, inputs driving the design process to determine the features, look, feel and behavior of the interaction design.
I recruited participants via social media and through personal connections and conducted a requirement gathering workshops to-understand and articulate the users’ requirements and pain points in a more elaborate manner in understanding their outfit planning routine in daily life.
In the context of establishing requirements,Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires was conducted for getting initial responses or opinions and views about specific suggestions for application design requirements and also to get a wider perspective on their outfit planning.
Personas and Scenarios
I analyzed the data that was gathered from contextual inquiry and I identified three personas that fit for different segments of individuals who might use our application. The three categories are 1) Young Adults/Student, 2) Baby Boomer, and 3) Busy Parents of Young Children.
User Flow Diagram
Storyboard helped to think through how a user might utilize this app.
Ideation
I created design sketches inspired by our analyzed data, storyboard, personas, and scenarios. These design sketches served as our lo-fi prototype.I started the interaction phase with sketching so to check and test functionality rather than the visual appearance of the product.
Also by creating a lo-fi paper prototype in just five to ten minutes helped to design and redesign multiple numbers of times as required and allowed us to explore different ideas without too much effort so I could validate from test users before proceeding into high fi prototypes.
Smartphone Sketches
Smartwatch Sketches
I decided to work on smartwatch channel along with smartphone to simplify user life and also to save time. The ease of having notifications sent to your wrist and being able to check weather details without removing your phone from a pocket or bag are few major significance of smartwatch features.
Mid fi Prototypes
Prototypes were designed using a tool called Axure.
Functionalities::
Once the user downloads the app, they will be directed to the login/signup page to provide their necessary login/signup credentials . User’s will also have the option to sign-in or to create an account by signing up with Google.
Once an account has been created, the user can upload their picture and customize their avatar by choosing desired hairstyle, eye color and specs according to their avatar.
Users have to take images of valuables and will be able to add cloth pictures, scan cloth tags from their current wardrobe. Also can assign names for each outfit as to know what it will look like in advance.
User can filter clothing suggestions based on event type, weather(auto detect).
The app will be able to determine an appropriate outfit suggestion once the user provides event types. The app will display various suggestions from the users wardrobe. Users will be able to swipe through these options and finalize their outfit.
Smartwatch prototype
OOTD app will be installed in Smartwatch to make user life easier.User will be provided with outfit notification.
Here I had planned to provided event type options that can be selected through smartwatch as well.The app will display various suggestions from the users wardrobe.
Usability Testing
The purpose of this test plan was to observe the behaviors of a subsection of representative users while performing tasks and to identify potential design concerns to be addressed in order to improve the efficiency, productivity, and end-user satisfaction for both smartwatch and mobile channels.
Participants
Recruits was pre-screened to ensure they meet one of the main user types: professional middle aged women, professional busy parent, and young adult man.
We asked the following questions to qualify and/or pre-screen individuals:
What is your approximate age range? (select age range)
What gender do you identify as?
Are you (along with a partner or other individual) the primary caretaker for a child (under age 16)?
Have you found yourself wishing you had someone to automatically pick out wardrobe pieces for you?
I had created mid-fidelity prototypes in Axure and created four tasks to be observed(two smartwatch and two smartphone).
Findings
The data collected showed that the users were mostly able to sign up and customize their avatar easily. Additionally, participants wanted to explore more avatar features in smartphone. The users who identified as men were not able to use the masculine avatar in smartphone.
Users were mostly confused about the smartwatch prototype menu layout, also user wanted few more option to choose outfits, if they don’t like the suggested outfits from the application. Additionally they wanted more outfit options to add on, such as accessories.
Smartwatch Iteration -https://kcmpsf.axshare.com
I deleted text entry field under weather into auto detect (through smartphone) weather features. Also Replaced Event type drop-downs on the Event Addition page into scrollable and clickable screen. (most of the smartwatches are not yet advanced for typing and dropdown features)
Before After
Initially in our smartwatch interface design, we used drop-down menus and checkboxes which was unusual to use on smart watch designs. Those would be more typical on a website. Hence, I re-designed the smart watch interface to use larger tap targets, such as clicking on an image to select it and carousel to choose other options .
Before After
Future Implications
I did place “Men” in a single category because we felt that segment, as a whole, would be less likely to use the application due to which users who identified as men were not able to use the masculine avatar in smartphone. Henceforth, I would need to do more research to accurately determine that decision.
More customizing options to segregate outfits based on category and also need to work on providing a outfit suggestions during granular situations.
Retro perspective
This project helped me to understand that, to make the design process a success it is essential to understand the user goals and to know how a design technology works in smartphone and smartwatch platform. Real-time users feedback and responses helped us to work on design iteration efficiently. Through this distinctive app user can access wardrobe from anywhere.User can view or filter all of their outfits from dozens of collections as well as can manage clothing without difficulty. Using OOTD, Experience a kind of mental freedom and super easy to use mobile application for all ages.
