Designing tools for managing and styling your closet
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
Oct - Nov 2024
Tools
Figma, Maze,
Adobe Illustrator
idea
Inspired by the many “I have nothing to wear” days
I often found myself opening my closet full of clothes yet felt like I had nothing to wear. Looking at online discussion and content, many people seem to resonate with this sentiment!
From growing wardrobe clutter to difficulty with styling, ‘Less Mess, Best Dressed’ was designed to help people navigate every day fashion decisions and foster personal style with items we already own.
solution
An all-in-one app for managing your closet & creating outfits
‘Less Mess, Best Dressed’ is a mobile app that serves as both a closet manager and stylist. Users are able to upload and organize their physical items into a digital closet, then create and plan outfits using these items.
By uploading items into a digital closet, details such as category and brand can be added, making it easier to view and navigate all items. Users gain a better sense of what items they own, encouraging wear.
Outfits can be created using uploaded items, and saved into collections or scheduled to be worn for select days. Deciding what to wear is made simple with the ability to quickly sort and filter through items, saving users time and effort when choosing an outfit.
features
Your IRL closet turned into a digital gallery.
Users can add items to their closet by uploading or taking photos of them and entering details like category, sub-category, and brand. Then, users can browse through them effortlessly like a photo gallery.
Items added to the closet can be used in the Outfit Planner feature.
Select items from your Closet and visualize them together using the Outfit Planner.
When an outfit is complete, users can choose to schedule them for a specific calendar date or save them to a collection for the right occasion.
Users can view all completed outfits on the Outfits page. Outfits can be saved to a collection, or scheduled for a specific date on the calendar.
design process
In order to set a clear direction for this project, my design process adhered to these constraints:
Experience Type - Mobile
User Flow - Tutorial/Onboarding
Time - 1 month
Resources - 1 session of usability testing
user research
What is the average person's closet like, and how do they choose what to wear?
The first step to this project was user research. I focused my research with these main goals in mind:
Understand how people organize and navigate their storage of clothes, accessories and footwear. What are the strengths and weaknesses of their organization?
Understand the process of how someone decides what to wear. Are there any frustrations or thoughts that come to mind during this process?
Methods of user research included interviews, competitive analysis, and observing online reviews.
My research lead me to the following key insights...
People don’t have a quantity problem, they have an organization problem.
People tend to wear the same few things due to a combination of organizational factors: knowledge of what they own, location of items, and convenience to wear.
The first step to styling is context.
People begin deciding what to wear by checking the weather and the occasion its for.
Sometimes there’s no time to try on every possible combination.
Trying on different combinations of items for an outfit is time-consuming and exhausting, but visualizing them is crucial for deciding on the final outfit.
problem statement
ideation & design
Focusing on the first-time user flow
I defined my project scope as designing for a user’s first-time experience on the app, where they will complete a simple tutorial introducing them to the app’s core features.
User flow diagram for the app’s tutorial
Designing core screens for an app tutorial
From sketches to wireframes to a high-fidelity prototype
"Acubi" fashion trend inspired branding & design system
user testing
Throughout the design process I made an effort to consider user feedback to guide my design choices. I gathered user feedback through A/B testing various iterations and usability testing the high-fidelity prototype.
User feedback from usability testing of the app’s Tutorial
What is the fastest way to get dressed and go?
My concept for the Home screen has been centered around saving users time by being able to quickly access the app’s core features (Outfit Planner and Closet), and viewing the planned outfit of the day. Many rounds of A/B testing and iterations later, a balanced combination of information and interactive elements was decided to make the final layout!
Home screen changes following A/B Testing user feedback
A more intuitive closet
During the usability test of the tutorial user flow, many users responded that they wished for more navigational features when browsing the closet items. Given this feedback, I iterated the closet pages to include sub-category filter buttons and buttons for generally searching, sorting, and filtering throughout the whole closet.
Closet page changes following usability testing feedback
reflection
The next social media app, for fashion
Since the project scope was limited to the ‘Tutorial’ user flow, there was so much more I would have loved to explore and design in this project, including...
Social networking features such as a home feed for outfit sharing and inspiration
Utilizing AI for outfit planner suggestions
Custom item specifications for advanced closet search, sort, and filters
