Background
As a duo, our aim was to develop a shopping application where users can browse and purchase from a variety of verified sustainable brands all in one place. Our objective is to promote a slower fashion approach, guiding customers towards timeless pieces meant to last. By featuring only sustainable fashion brands, we offer peace of mind to consumers while simplifying their shopping experience through a single, convenient platform.
The Problem
Fast fashion’s rapid turnover of trends has contributed heavily to excessive waste and exploitation of labor. Consumers seeking ethically produced clothing often have to do a lot of their own research to identify truly sustainable brands.
Goals
- Design a mobile app that allows users to shop for sustainable fashion on a centralized platform
- Design the brand identity for Roots that aligns with our effort to promote ethical fashion
Tools
- Figma
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
Role
As a team
with Gwyneth Glass:
- UI/UX Research
- Interface Design
- Brand Development
Creative Process
competitive analysis
Through our competitive research, we observed a significant gap in the market for a sustainable shopping platform. While numerous individual clothing brands and designers are dedicated to ethical and sustainable production, indicating a demand for it in the marketplace, there are currently no platforms that aggregate all these brands in one place. We decided to do our competitive analysis on two of the top shopping platforms on the market ASOS and Depop.
Click here to view our competitive analysis.
User Interviews
Through our user interviews, we aimed to gain a better understanding of our target market audience and obtain direct insight into their choices and decisions when shopping on a mobile device. We interviewed a total of four potential users ranging from ages 15-27 that all had an interest in shopping sustainably. Click here to view our user interviews document.
Click here to view our User Interviewspersonas
To better empathize with our users and tailor our solution to their needs, we created fictional personas that embody key segments of our target audience. This ultimately helped guide our design decisions to ensure a more user-centric approach.
User Flows
We mapped out different potential user flow, consisting of the following tasks:
- Logging in/signing up
- Searching for an item
- Adding an item to bag
- Saving an item
- Accesing personal account
- Access and use the ROOTS clothes recycling program
Lo-fi Wireframes
The next step in our process was to create low fidelity wireframes for each key screen in our user flow. We also prototyped the screens, which allowed us to visualize the layout for the app and conduct our first rounds of user testing.
Click here to view all of our lo-fi wireframes.Testing
We conducted some usability tests by having potential users try and complete different tasks such as accessing the ROOTS Recycling Program or purchasing an item. Through these tests we realized a couple different areas for concern:
- We needed to include more explanation and context for the ROOTS Recycling Program
- Users were confused about the bottom navigation bar switching content once they were in the "recycle" section of the app, so we decided to keep the nav bar consistent throughout the design as you can see below
Design/branding
We wanted to create an identity that aligned with our brand values: Ethical, Sustainable, and Classic. A shopping app that supported sustainability from the core, which is how the name ROOTS was born. We decided to use a condensed serif typeface for the logotype, muted accent colors, and a wavy line motif.
UI KIT
HI-fi wireframes
We developed high-fidelity wireframes incorporating design elements from our style kit and UI kit. This enabled us to visualize the final product more accurately and conduct additional user testing to ensure smooth functionality.
Click here to see all of our hi-fi wireframes.
