Making it easier than ever before to sell pre-loved ill-fitting children's clothing.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Industry
E-commerce
Duration
4 months
Seattle has just over 106,841 children who grow and change quickly. This means they often outgrow their clothes, requiring their parents to buy new ones. Sadly, the clothing industry contributes over 183 million items of kids’ clothing to landfills each year. Much of this clothing is still in good condition and could have been worn a few more times before being discarded. To address this issue, online resale shops like ThredUp and Poshmark have emerged, allowing people to sell their gently used clothing and earn money from the sale. Other platforms also exist such as Facebook Marketplace which is also used for resale, but it can be risky as anyone can create multiple unverified accounts and engage in fraudulent activities. The issue of excessive textile waste is a growing concern, and children's clothing contributes to a significant portion of this waste. Many busy parents find it hard to keep up with their children's growing needs and end up throwing away old clothing. However, these clothes can still be used by other parents in their community who may not be able to afford new clothing for their kids. Unfortunately, there are few community-based online resources available to redistribute old clothing to those who need it, which can result in even more textile waste. Finding a way to connect parents and make used children's clothing available to others in their area could be a simple yet effective solution to this problem.
Children's clothing is being thrown away, contributing to excessive textile waste. Busy parents have to buy new clothing for their kids but have few community-based online resources to redistribute the old clothing to other parents in their area.
Create a safe community-based online resource and app that aids in the purchase and resale of children's clothing in Seattle and surrounding neighbourhoods.
My responsibilities include conducting research, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on the design.
User research interviews were conducted with 10 men and women with young children in Seattle and the surrounding communities. The interviews aimed to understand how people in the Seattle area feel about the problem and their suggestions for a potential solution. The questions were structured to identify the functional needs and features that an ideal local children's clothing resale app would have. The discussions covered the pain points experienced by users with the current process, as well as what they would find useful in the app's design.
Categories for kids clothing that ranges from birth to teenage aged kids sizes. This can also include kids sporting and activity wear.
Itemized selection method to narrow down the searches in order to retrieve exactly what you are looking for. I Including Size, Color and Brand.
No face to face pass-over. If there was a way to pass on and receive the children's garments without having to physically meet up with people, users would prefer that for safety and ease of use.
Clients described a need to have verified sellers on the app, so that people are held accountable for the items that they sell. This could be done by allowing users to rate other users on the app after selling to them or buying from them. These reviews would allow other users to have an idea of what other people experienced when doing business with them.
Creating a way for users could receive payment without giving out they're banking details. This could mitigate scammers from using the app to scam others.
The potential for users to use this app to sell other small items. This is a function that is a nice to have however could be something that we include in later iterations of the business.
A way to chat to buyers and sellers to tell them about the clothes after listing or ask them to keep certain items aside for users who are not in the position to purchase at that time.
Store fronts for second hand sellers. This is an idea that has been spoken about however as the website is being designed for the families of seattle and not as a profit grab, it may be something that is discussed in future.
The primary goal of conducting user research is to gain insight into the behaviors and preferences of individuals who participate in buying and selling second-hand clothing within their local communities. This research aims to uncover the challenges and obstacles faced by users during these transactions, as well as to gain an understanding of the current features and services provided by competitors. Furthermore, the research seeks to identify opportunities for introducing new features that would enrich the overall user experience.
To begin the wire-framing process, I drew up some wireframes by hand. This process allowed me to come up with many ideas quickly, that could be easily changed and redesigned. Once I had a couple of these hand-drawn wireframes, I highlighted key elements that I wanted to include in the digital wireframes. I then went into Figma and drew up low Fidelity prototype of the Stof app.
This process required doing a bit of research into current fashion e-commerce sites and resale sites to establish current trends and best practices. This also allowed me to see what the basic limitations of e-commerce sights.
I will organize user testing with a wide range of app users to collect valuable feedback on the new design. This step is important for discovering any unexpected usability problems and confirming the effectiveness of the design elements. I will make continuous improvements based on this feedback, adjusting the app's interface to enhance user satisfaction and interaction
I improved my skills in Figma and honed my design abilities, addressing any design challenges that arose.