WEARABLE

A collaboration class project with colleagues about defining a social problem space and finding a solution that weaves the social fabric together using the user-testing protocol. The prompt of this project is inspired by the CHI 2019 competition which can be found here: chi2019.acm.org

Our solution: weARable

• Weaves the threads of economically constrained female college students entering the workforce

• Focuses on economic constraint of purchasing professional attire

• Understand users’ social and psychological perspectives about themselves

• Aims to both foster social inclusion and sustainability by targeting social alienation, self-confidence, and clothing waste on college campuses

KEY QUESTIONS (GOALS)

• What is the solution to the problem space?

• How does the solution fit the persona’s needs and desires?

• How usable is the solution?

• Does the solution actually fit the needs and desires of the persona?

• Does the solution weave the threads of the social fabric?

Main findings in 10 points

PERSONA

DESIGNING THE SOLUTION

SOLUTION SPACE

Before jumping into the design process, we need to assess the solution space, since it informs us about the current solutions to the problem. Here’s a summary of what was found:

IDEA GENERATION

The solution space also helps with inspirations. Each team member brainstormed 20 new solution ideas by combining existing solutions and tying in new ones. Here are some highlights of the solutions that I have generated:

Together, my teammates and I reviewed 100 idea generations.

We organized them into eleven groups: Clothing advice, clothing discounts, clothing inspiration, repurposing old clothing, AR and VR dressing rooms, 3D printing of clothing, donation services, thrift services, lending services, adjustable clothing, and promotion of sustainability.

The finalized idea was chosen by mixing ideas together and by asking ourselves if the product can potentially fit the needs of our users.

DESIGN CONCEPT

Finalized Idea
Our finalized product idea is a phone app called weARable that allows Cornell students to wear free virtual clothing for online interviews.

How it works/What it does
weARable allows users to wear any business professional clothing item they would like without having to worry about constraining factors such as price or fit.

The application has five primary features:
My Closet, Explore, Video Call, My Community, and Add Clothes.

1. My Closet = Users can view and use their virtual clothes

2. Explore = Users can find other users and inspirations

3. Video Call = Users can video call into interviews or seek advice from family and friends

4. My Community = Users can find style inspirations amongst each other, weaving the social fabric together

5. Add Clothes = Users can add clothes from the “Explore” feature and they can also add clothes to their closet by uploading images they find on social media platforms or by taking pictures while shopping

INITIAL PRODUCT SKETCHES

STORYBOARD

Here is a sample of a storyboard that I made:

LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

STOP MOTION VIDEO

USER FEEDBACK

Using the paper prototype, we conducted user feedback to test the usability to capture the intuitive responses of the interface. Their feedback were incorporated in upcoming prototypes.

Who: 3 HEOP female students

Tasks for Paper Prototype
Five tasks were used to test the paper prototype:

1. Explore “My Community” to find clothing from other people’s closets to add to “My Closet”.

2. Use the “Add from Camera Feature” (represented by the camera icon) to add clothing by taking a picture with the camera.

3. Using the “add from camera feature” (represented by the camera icon) to add clothing from the camera roll.

4. Interact with the “Explore” feature to find popular and recommended clothing from new users to add to “My Closet”.

5. Use the “Video Chat” feature to wear an outfit or clothing item in a video call.

Changes Based on User Feedback

Based off of user testing of our paper prototype, these are the four changes we implemented into our Balsamiq prototype.

MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

BALSAMIQ PROTOTYPE

EVALUATIONS & FEEDBACK

Heuristic Evaluation

As experts of our own design, we evaluated design violations in our Balsamiq prototype using Nielsen’s Heuristics. We judged the heuristics based off of time and severity costs. This would affect which violations we would need keep as a priority to change, given the time constraint of deadlines.

Peer Feedback

We asked our colleagues to do a peer review after presenting our Balsamiq prototype.

Our peer feedback revealed to us:

1. Our labels on some features were misleading

   • What does “Items” mean?"

     • Why does it lead to shirts, pants, etc?

2. Our bottom menu and hamburger menu had redundant buttons

   • Why have two menus when they give you the same options?

3. There aren’t enough confirmation messages

   • How do I know where I am in the system?

   • How do I know if the item has been converted?

This feedback would be considered in the high-fidelity InVision prototype.

HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

INVISION PROTOTYPE

As a team, we delegated screens based off of functions for each of us to make.
I was in charge of individual outfit screens.

Here are some other screens:

USABILITY TESTING

We recruited five female members of HEOP and we gave them a set of five tasks to test and showcase the flow of weARable using InVision. Here is an example:

Task 1: You have an interview this afternoon. You’re scrambling to find a new article of clothing because you do not like the clothes currently in your virtual closet. You want to find clothes from the people in “My Community” and add it to your closet.  

• Why this task?

  • You want to find inspiration for your interview outfit, engage with your friends, and find a new clothing article.

Each task was given one by one, until each task was completed or skipped by the participant.

SEQUENCE FLOW VIDEO

EVALUATION FINDINGS & CHANGES

After the usability testing, we found six main UX Design Problems (UDP) based off of UX Problem Instances (UPI) that occurred during the interview sessions. 6 solutions were brainstormed.

The 3 starred UDPs were chosen to be implemented into solutions.
They were chosen based off of severity and time/efficiency cost.

IMPLEMENTED EVALUATION CHANGES IN VIDEO

Here is a video we made that shows the implemented changes (Befores & Afters):

REFLECTIONS

POSTER SESSION

On the last day of class, we had a poster session to showcase our study.

Click here to access the PDF for the poster.

This is us!

SUMMARY

Key Questions (Goals)

Let’s revisit the Key Questions:

• What is the solution to the problem space?

  • weARable, a mobile application geared toward low-income female college students to help find professional clothing for entering the work force.

• How does the solution fit the persona’s needs and desires?

  • Users can find professional clothing at no cost.

  • Users can be sustainable because of AR technology.

  • Users can rest assured that the AR clothing fit because they snap onto one’s body shape (i.e. Like Snapchat facial filters)

• How usable is the solution?

  • Based off of usability testing, some features still need to be fixed but because of time and efficiency, it could not be done.

  • However, for the main features of the application, we tried to make the interaction as smooth as possible, tweaking and fixing after each reiteration of usability tests.

• Does the solution actually fit the needs and desires of the persona?

  • We hope that weARable does actually fit the needs and desires of the persona in the near future.

  • In hindsight, in terms of weARable being an actual product, AR technology might not be on par with how realistic we would like professional clothing to look like on a user for actual interviews.

• Does the solution weave the threads of the social fabric?

  • With the open community weARable provides for advice giving and clothing sharing — Yes, we believe our solution does weave the threads of the social fabric!
    

FINAL THOUGHTS

This experience was one of my first exposures of the UX design and research process. With that in mind, I learned many things throughout this course, about the design process, as well as about myself. I learned that in groups, I needed to trust others’ work, learn from their skills, and support them whenever they needed it (or ask for support whenever I needed it).

For the design process, I learned that it is essential to understand what already exists in the solution space before starting the actual design process. Most importantly, I learned that we need to design for what the user really needs and not what we, as designers and researchers, think they need.

In terms of usability and user testing, I learned that testing sessions are important in understanding how the product is actually interacted with by users and that reiterations on these testing sessions help with solving old and new design problems, making for a better, improved product in the end.

Lastly, in the future, I hope to explore other methodologies of user and usability testing for prospective research!

THANK YOU FOR READING! 🙃