CSP° - Fashion ecommerce

The Case Study Project is a digital based lifestyle brand focusing on offering good quality product and a curated shopping experience inspired by art and personal style. The goal is to create branding and a responsive ecommerce platform that represents the core identity of CSP. Since its a new brand, we already explore the business structure and ways for us to grow as CSP continues to develop.

Role:
UX, UI, research, branding, Visual, Concept
Duration:
5 weeks
Tools:
Figma, Illustration, Photoshop
SEE PROTOTYPE

Background

The case study project formed in the Fall 2020 by 3 friends looking to offer Techwear inspired garments and eventually lifestyle products. CSP believes personal style rather than following trend, and strives to create a more curated and sustainable shopping experience for the forward thinking minds.

Objectives

1. Create responsive ecommerce platform that represents the identity of CSP
2. Create branding that looks good on a digital platform as well as on physical products

Process overview

empathize

Stakeholder interview
Market research
Competitive analysis
User interview

Define

Affinity wall
persona
Emotional journey
Site map

Ideate

Moodboard
UI kit
Wireframe

Impliment

Feedback metric
Prototype

Stakeholder Interview

The first task was to understand my partner’s vision and intention through the Stakeholder interview. We had already talked about what type of product and aesthetic we want to create, so for this interview we went over business goals, expectations, potential roadblock, and any other required features. The interview was in casual setting to encourage comfort and openness to express any thoughts, ideas, or concerns.

1. What do you want out of creating this brand?

"A curated platform focusing on slow fashion and sustainability to sell both custom made and dropship products"

2. Who is your target audiences?

"Fashion lovers who value personal style and are trend driven, #techwear TikTokers and Instagrammer, artist and visually creatives"

3. What kind of aesthetic are you looking for?

"Techwear of course. Also something that is fresh and exciting, feels curated, feels like a personal style"

Planning

We collaborated and came up with a Business Model Canvas that works for creating a new independent fashion brand. Because we want to focus on creating a good line first, we decided it was best not to focus on cost structure and revenue stream until after we release our first. After that, I crafted a roadmap that is an overview of our long-range planning, from Website and UX design, to Branding, to Product, and to Customer care.

Research

To gain a better insight that will help me better identify needs, I created this Research plan and then started the journey with competitive analysis and trend research. It was important to understand the value of this brand, and since coolness is a valuable currency in the fashion space, what trends our target customers think are cool.

Competitor analysis

For a competitive analysis, I picked other relevant independent brands with a strong brand identity. I also looked into some ecommerce platform that caters to brand and aesthetic driven audiences. With brands like Heron Preston, 1017 ALYX 9SM, and Jacquemus, we see the consistency in their brand representation and the personal aesthetic that makes them standout in the sea of other independent brands. All of them cater to their own established niche market, have a strong presence in Pop culture, and are considered cool.

Interview Summary

To gauge some understanding on what customers would want in an ecommerce website as well as in a slow fashion brand, I did 1-1 interview with 5 participants using this interview script and extract their answers using the Affinity wall method. Participants were picked base on their shopping preference and if they would be a customer for independent brands.

User persona

The question I ask my self before crafting a persona: "Which macro influencers would wear our cloths and what would they like to see?". These macro influencers are macro because of their aesthetic choice, and I figured I can use their numbers of like, engagements, and views to sales conversion to determine which personality is popular amongst the customers and why. With top 3 influencers in mind along with social media trend research and my one on one interviews, I created persona profiles. From there, I create Emotional Journey for one of the persona to better understand the way a customer think and make a decision when shop for custom pieces.

Site map

Sitemap was designed based on data from the affinity wall and brand’s current ability to produce products. Since first collection will be woman’s only, there won’t be separation of man/woman category until later on.

First wireframe

What I kept in mind here was to create a layout that is convenient to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and encourage people to buy our product. Since the selling point here is the product, I created the layout that is image focus and light in text. For a trend-driven fashion brand, amazing images that elicited emotional response will drive more sales than beautiful words. Customers come to this website to look for the next in-trend piece to buy and we only have couple of seconds to catch and sustain their attention.

Moodboard and UI kit

Trend research for this project was a fun one and involved a lot of social media browsing. I went back to Tiktok and Instagram for some more trend research. The challenge here is to correctly pinpoint trends that our target customers find appealing while battling with constant changes that are a part of the fashion industry. I across reference trends and design elements I found from Influencers and competitors and came up with this Mood board that is still based on CSP identity.

CPS: a mixture of futurism, techwear, streetwear, and romance.

Prototype

HIFI wireframe

Keep it easy, keep it on-trend, keep it timeless

User testing

After the prototype is ready, I conducted a user testing with 5 participants. Testing includes 1-1 interview with feedback metric at the end of the interview. Feedback metric allows me to obtain quantitative data on user’s effort/likes/frustration while using the website to perform tasks given, while the interview allows me to gather qualitative data to compare with and confirm my quantitative data. Click here for a full list of interview questions

Notable comments from user interview
‍
- Need delete button on cart page
- 4 users like the no pop-up aspect of email sign-up
- Emoji makes the website feels more friendly
- Like that you can see how cloth looks on actual person
Need sizing chart
- Overall vibe feels expensive 👍
- 4 users said “hopes this become a real website cus it actually looks good”

Next step

1.Design the rest of the page needed for a fully functional fashion ecommerce website.
2.Create digital assets such as email and social content.
3.Produce this website this website and make it a reality.
4.Add products and have website be completely ready by launch date May 2021.

Conclusion & final thoughts

Having worked in the fashion industry for the past 10 years, I was able to look into my past experiences and utilize the industry knowledge I know. What I realize here is the more you know your customers, the more you will be able to design an experience your customers would like. Fashion being something so personal, look and feel is very important as you have only couple of seconds to captivate your audiences.

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