Challenge
Deliverables
Role
find a better and long-term solution that can help customers build positive body image when shopping & avoid any ethic issue in research
find a better and long-term solution that can help customers build positive body image when shopping & avoid any ethic issue in research
persona/ app & website / video prototype & app promotion video
UX researcher and designer ( individual project )
BestU is an online community that encourages people to focus more on the relationship between identity and clothes to promote body positivity.
​Problem Statement
According to a government report, 86% of 18-34-years-old people is not satisfied with their body. At the same time, 76% of people think fashion would increase this situation. Nowadays, customers have put an increasing pressure on fashion brands and retailers to get inclusion right and deliver a body-positive fashion experience. How to improve body-positive shopping experience will be a future trend in the fashion industry.
Research
Research Method: Drawing
The first thing I want to know is their attitudes towards body image, because my project may be sensitive and cause ethic issue so I cannot ask them directly about how they feel about their body. I let participants draw their own body image and they would explain why they draw like this way.
Research Method: Direct Storytelling & Semi-Structured Interview
The next thing I want to know is which parts of shopping experience that related to body image. I came to participants’ houses to let them select some clothes that make them feel confident and unconfident. And I asked them to talk about the shopping experience and the story of these clothes. This is a way to remind them of the memory of their shopping experience and talk actively.
Research Method: Think Aloud & Design Ethnography
Finally, I want to know how they react and feel in real shopping scenario. Participants were asked to select some clothes and speak out their thinking and feelings during the shopping. This can help me to know which part or situations impact on body image.
Data Analysis
Affinity Diagramming
After collecting research data, I used two ways to analyse it. First, I want to identify initial themes and patterns in large amounts of data by affinity diagramming.
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As for people who are not always confident in their body image, they also want to try new things in fashion instead of staying as usual, which leads to a conflict situation that they want to step out of comfort zone, but they still haven't gained enough confidence.
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People care too much about the body flaws shown by clothes. They always feel unconfident when clothes show unconfident body parts.
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People around users affect choice of clothes and body image, which suggests that friendly support can help create body positive.
Insights & UX vision
Young people who are not always confident in their body image, they want to try new things in fashion and follow trends, but they care too much about the body flaws shown by clothes and afraid receiving negative feedback, so they hesitate to try new styles and have negative feelings.
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There is an opportunity to solve these problems.
Ideation
How Might We Workshop
For brainstorming diverse, meaningful and relevant solution, I used How might we and discussed with other UX students. The first HMW is to let users sense the positive value that created by clothes instead of focusing on the relationship between body shape and clothes. The second one is to make them perceive positive feedback or value.
Trends Brainstorm Cards / Tech & Trend Matrix
For exploring innovative opportunities in diverse areas, I used brainstorm card which are about recent customers, technology & social trend. When I used the card, I combine some possible trends with my HMW into initial concepts. By applying different trend, it will make the concepts more actionable.
Co-Design ( Concept Card & Idea shopping cart )
For further developing my concept, I invited users to join my Co-design.
I used concept cards to explain my idea better. The card records the content of concept, related how might we and insights. In co-design, I introduced my several concepts first and then they discussed their thinking.
During the discussion, participants used a form called idea shopping cart to choose favourite features, the features they want to change, features that they want to add. After discussion, they can write down their top3 concept and explain why they like them. Idea shopping cart is to ensure a sufficient variety of ideas and facilitate all participants’ individual selection processes.
After co-design, I ranked the participants’ favourite concept and features. “Tags” is the most popular.
This concept can strengthen the connection between clothes and personality, image or interest in order to let them focus less on the relationship between body image and clothes. The touch point is the tag.
And then I change a little bit of these concepts based on participants’ opinion and their favourite features. As for the tag concept, I was suggested to create an online community for users to make a long-term mind change.
Concept Evaluation (How-wow-now matrix)
After making changes for each concept, the how-now-wow matrix helps me categorize ideas according to ease of implementation and level of newness. I selected the WOW ones, which are both innovative and easy-to-implement. According to the result, I picked the tag & community concept. I didn’t pick the other one in wow zone which is to use a funny way to diss designers when they return unfit clothes, because it may have ethic issue.
Competitor Analysis
I learn about my competitors for knowing strengths and disadvantages and having evidence to back up design changes.
In a fashion recommendation website. Users need to do a personality test first and be recommended items based on the test result. According to my and participants’ feedback, we agreed that personality result seems to be irrelevant to the recommended item. I should show the connection between tags and clothes.
The other is mind change needs long time and positive trigger. An app called think-up ask users to read different affirmation in a long time. My participants thought perceiving supportive information in a long-term will work, which is also mentioned in the insights.
Concept ( Key Features)
I simply introduce my key features in my concept. I want to strengthen the connection between clothes and personality, image or interest in order to let them focus less on the relationship between body image and clothes. The touch point is the tag. Some key words are on the tags, like “outgoing” “movie lover”. Also, there is an online social community for users to gain positive feedback and find similar people based on these tags. They can focus on whether clothes can show their personality rather than make their body shape look better in a long time.
Why I use tags about personality? The first reason comes from the insights & hmw. Secondly, my participants like things that show who they are even clothes cannot make their body shape better. The third is the tags. An assistant in a fashion industry told me that fashion brands like to print extra information on swing tags. Customers and brand both think it is a good way to get information.
Why I build an online community? Users can get positive feedback and supportive information in the community. If I just use tags, they have positive feelings at that moment. The online community may have a lasting influence by a sense of belonging. The third comes from co-design & competitor analysis. Participants like to be recommended clothes based on their personal experience or personality. Online platform can meet their needs better. They will know their unique characteristic inadvertently. In a dove self-esteem project, it mentioned that if people can know their advantages, they will build self-love and self-esteem.
Video Prototype
The Overview Of The Concept
When users shop for clothes, they will see the tags with some key words. They are characteristics that relevant to clothes, which are posted by previous customers in the online community. After they join the online community, different tags are different groups. Users can see how other users dress to show the personality with mood board and word description. This platform recommends outfit based on different group, and there are different ways to encourage supportive activities.
App Function Video
Design Process
Stakeholder Suggestion
I talked to a stakeholder. She is in Boden customer department. She mentioned about authenticity. How to make users trust tags are collected from real customers, not influencers who have been paid? I decided to show more information about the source of the tags. Showing more users’ information like purchase time and pictures will increase the authenticity. Also, diverse photo quality and style can help this.
Stakeholder Suggestion
The next one also comes from my stakeholder. Showing users' information needs to follow the GDPR laws. How to manage data protection? How many people need to take charge of it? At first, the tags on the product page are random, but this needs a lot of data management. So I changed it into just popular tags. And I also change the idea of individual online platform which linked to diverse fashion brand into “single fashion brand company and its online community”. Few products can reduce a large amount of data processing.
Body Storming & Storyboard
At first, I design for both in-store & online shopping, but in-store shopping still needs more time to research and develop. I start from online shopping but will apply the concept in in-store shopping in the future plan.
After that, I tried to do storyboard to make an overview of video prototype and use body storming to test the process. I design an both website and app to show my concept more clearly than just app.
Paper Prototype & Another Stakeholder
After paper prototype, I made some small UI design change. Paper prototype can make rapid iteration and users can use pens to draw down their ideas.
Also, I talked to another stakeholder, a fashion designer. She told me that some designers like to tell customers about design inspiration. Many designer brands like to sell story not just clothes. I think designers’ inspiration could be the content of the tag, especially for new items.
Mood Board
One of the key differences between my community and other social media is that the mood board. This comes from competitor analysis. Users may get confused when they cannot see the connection between tag and personality directly. So I used mood board to help users to explain their inspiration. They can use relevant pictures around the outfit to show the connection.
Mood Board Search
The next one is an experimental function. Apart from traditional search, users can use their own personality or other personal experience to search suitable clothes directly. This is based on the theory that building self-confidence needs to learn about self-characteristics. My participants think it would be too wired to write down characteristics, and the technology cannot help to do this well. So, I did some secondary research to look for any other technology that can support it. I found that google has a technology called mood board AI search. After uploading pictures, AI can analyse and find similar mood board. I think it can apply in my platform. I suggest users to upload their memory pictures to find personal style.
Supportive
As for supportive function, I try to create a positive atmosphere. There will be friendly slogans about body positivity and encourage positive activities in loading page. The second one is to provide awards and show the good feedback when they finished the positive activities. When they post, comment, or give a like, they can gain points to get discount shopping. And the report system will take body shame as a main report reason. If it identifies above activities, the points will be deducted.
Business Canvas & Stakeholders' Comments
And then I used business canvas to check whether the concept actually creates, delivers and captures value as intended. Combined with stakeholders’ opinion, there are some benefits. Body positivity is a big theme in retail, many brands follow this trend. Contributing more to this topic can build a better brand image. Especially for premium brands, they like to build up whole stories for a collection. My concept can help them explain their stories well. In addition, people can have more positive body image.
Reflection
Ethic
I did the intended consequence matrix to consider and assume responsibility for all reasonably predicted outcomes of my concept. People may be more anxious when using the online community. They still need to see other people’s body. I decide to show them different users with diverse size on purpose. This can be achieved because online community links to the fashion brand and It is reasonable to know users’ size.
Secondly, users may think it is not safe to let their post link to the fashion website. I think it can be decided by users themselves whether their post are shown on the website. Or they can show less information. Users may gradually gain confidence and they may buy more clothes. This is harmful for sustainability. I didn’t know how to solve this problem now. Maybe this online community can cooperate with a second hand clothing platform in the future.
Future Plan
If I get more time, I will apply my idea in in-store shopping. In body storming, I found customers may not notice the extra information and tags first. Maybe an interactive screen can attract their attention. When they come close to the screen, the tags will show up. A report reveals that online shopping on social media is becoming more popular. My concept can also apply in social media like Instagram. Besides, I would like to talk to stakeholder in other area not just in the fashion industry. My 3 stakeholders are related to fashion, so my concept may be too commercial. I may find people related to body positivity or even a psychologist.
