Conscious Closet
An app to help people curb their overconsumption of clothing, by encouraging them to use clothes they already have.
Timeline: 4 months
Role: Design Lead, User Research, UX Design
Collaborators: Lottie Brown (Iconography and Plugin)
Initial Conception
We knew we wanted to help stop people from buying clothes they don’t need.
Overconsumption of clothing is becoming an increasing problem, especially among younger people. It leads to environmental waste, financial strain, and excessive resource use.
The Challenge
While many people want to spend less money on clothes, that is easier said than done. We want to empower our users to make do with what they have while staying fresh and new.
The Goal
To create an app that allows our users to see the clothes they own at a glance, generate completely new outfits based on their style preferences, and save their favorite looks for later.
Research
Why do our users spend money on clothes they don’t strictly need?
To answer this question, we created a detailed survey. The responses provided insights into our users' needs, the reasons behind their buying habits, and what we could do to help.
Takeaways
Emotional reasons, such as "retail therapy”
Wanting to stay on top of trends
How might we?
Our how might we questions allowed us to better pinpoint our users’ needs, which helped us to better design the interaction.
Equip people with the ability to resist buying into the trends they see
Encourage the development of our users’ own style
Help our users use the clothes they already own
Decrease the amount of waste created by fast fashion
User Archetypes
After receiving feedback via the survey as well as creating our how-might-we statements, we were able to start putting together user archetypes. We came up with the two that you see here.
The Stress Shopper
Behavior:
Purchases clothing impulsively during stressful periods.
Accumulates a large number of unworn items in their closet.
Experiences regret or guilt after shopping but finds it difficult to break the cycle.
Needs:
Seeking healthy alternatives to manage stress and emotional triggers.
Tools or resources to help monitor and limit spending on non-essential items.
Solutions to better utilize existing clothing to feel satisfied with current wardrobe options.
The Conscious Buyer
Behavior:
Prioritizes using and restyling existing clothing to minimize waste.
Shops at thrift stores or sustainable brands when new items are needed.
Actively seeks inspiration and methods to revitalize and reinvent their current wardrobe.
Core Needs:
Resources and tips for maintaining a sustainable wardrobe and reducing fashion waste.
Ideas and tools for creating new outfits from existing clothes to keep their wardrobe feeling fresh.
Execution
Low-Fidelity Mockups
We transitioned from research to low-fidelity design, opting for an app format for its frequent usage. Our focus was on immediate outfit creation without the need for bookmarking or loading times, prioritizing convenience and speed.
Takeaways
The card style of the onboarding quiz proved unnecessarily confusing.
Eliminating the separate home screen and guiding the user directly into the closet proved more effective.
To enhance navigation within the closet, creating icons is necessary; during testing, users found it tedious to photograph each piece of clothing.
UI & Visual Design
For the transition to high-fidelity, we focused on a cohesive visual design with a color palette of creams, pinks, and pastel reds. We selected the sans-serif Manrope for its readability on smaller screens, while incorporating playful icons, buttons, and illustrations with soft, rounded edges.
High-Fidelity Testing
The interactive design of the application mimics the experience of looking into your closet to pick out an outfit. Instead of a physical closet, all your clothes are displayed digitally, allowing you to select a brand-new outfit every day.
Onboarding
This is the onboarding quiz, which helps the app understand the user's style to provide personalized outfit recommendations. Users can update their preferences at any time in the profile tab.
Outfit Generation
This feature allows users to generate outfits from their digital closet. The app assembles and presents potential outfits, and users can either lock a specific piece to regenerate new options or save the current outfit for future use.
Adding a piece: Automatic
This feature allows users to add items to their closet by scanning the clothing tag, which automatically adds descriptors. Users can then verify the information and add the item to their closet.
Adding a piece: Manual
Users can manually add items to their closet by selecting the type, style, size, and color. These details are stored, allowing users to search for specific tags later.
Saved & Profile Tab
The "Saved" and "Profile" tabs allow users to view, edit, and add to their saved outfits, ensuring they don't forget favorites. The profile tab also displays various stats and allows users to edit their taste preferences.
Reflection
Final Takeaways
Conscious Closet effectively addresses the issue of clothing overconsumption by helping users utilize their existing wardrobes. The app’s intuitive design simplifies outfit creation and encourages sustainable fashion practices, making it easier for users to enjoy new outfits without the need to constantly buy new clothes.
Future Improvements
Enhance clothing representation for better outfit visualization.
Improve the flow for manually adding pieces.
Expand the functionality with a plug-in to help when online shopping.