Dreaming of becoming a fashion designer is one thing, but turning that dream into reality can be a challenge. For emerging black fashion designers, success in the industry often requires significant financial investment and a network of connections that can be hard to come by.
But what if there was a platform that could provide the brand exposure and networking opportunities needed to establish a sustainable business?
OVERVIEW
Client: Ilana, General Assembly Client Project
Duration: 2.5-week design sprint; Fall 2022
Tools: Figma, Maze, Canva, Notion
Methodologies: Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona, Wireframing, Rapid Prototyping, User Testing, Competitive and Comparative Analysis, Design Heuristics Analysis
Team: 4 UX/UI Designers, 1 Project Manager (Natalie Giudici, Mariana Zanete, Lisa S., Michelle Roman, Carolina Larach)
MY ROLE: LEAD UX RESEARCHER, UX/UI DESIGNER
I led the user interviews, recruited participants, created a persona and affinity map, evaluated the site's usability using Nielsen Norman's 10 design heuristics, and helped define the project's deliverables. I also collaborated with the team on designing and executing wireframes and prototypes.
PROJECT RECAP
Ilana, which means “pathway” in Yoruba, helps aspiring black designers by providing support and low-cost resources needed to advance their careers in fashion. They are both a store for black-owned fashion brands and a platform where designers can join to gain expertise, connect, get consultations, and collaborate.
Ilana aims to boost site engagement and subscriber retention to achieve their target number of users. Our client expressed a desire to expand their user base, but their biggest challenge lies in maintaining site engagement and communication with its current user base, which is mainly located in Africa.
To drive subscriber growth and engagement, we focused on understanding the ideal target audience for Ilana's product. By recognizing their need for brand exposure and networking opportunities to establish a sustainable fashion business, we introduced a new feature that allows users to personalize their profiles, showcase their design collections, and connect with other designers.
Emerging black fashion designers need a platform that provides brand exposure and networking opportunities with other designers because they need support establishing a sustainable business.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
PROJECT GOALS
During our kickoff meeting with Ilana’s cofounder, the following business goals were established:
Improve site engagement
Increase the number of Community members
Reduce drop-off rates and onboard quicker
METRICS
Ilana informed us they currently have 30 users with profiles and were targeting to get 200. The majority of their users are based in Africa (28 in Africa and 2 in Europe).
Ilana told us they were open to expanding their user base into Europe and potentially the US to meet their target number of users.
BUSINESS CONSTRAINTS & PAIN POINTS
It is important to keep in mind what the business is capable of implementing and where they are finding the most difficulties. We asked our client what our project limitations were and their biggest pain points.
Constraints:
Ilana does not want to change their established 4 step design consultation process
Costs of implementation: propose solutions the developer can implement / use what is already working from the site
Pain points:
Difficulty communicating with their users in Africa
THE CHALLENGE: PIVOTING TARGET USERS
We started the project hoping to interview Ilana’s existing users in Africa. Not long after we realized the difference in time zones was the least of our concerns when it came to communicating with these users. The users rarely checked their emails, almost never responded, and had internet issues. The one user we were able to connect with was no different; we were only able to talk via WhatsApp voice notes. She told us her colleagues also experienced similar network connectivity issues and were not always able to log into the Ilana site.
With such limited access to Ilana’s African users, coupled with their extensive network connectivity issues, our team made a decision and pivoted our research efforts toward Ilana’s future US users. As lead researcher, I quickly began reaching out to various black fashion designers in the US via LinkedIn and Instagram.
INTERVIEW KEY TAKEAWAYS
We interviewed 4 emerging black fashion designers in the US. Our interview goal was to understand what are these potential users’ frustrations, their needs, and what they are interested in learning.
This information is critical in determining how Ilana is addressing its users’ needs and potential areas for improvement.
After doing an Affinity Map of our interview findings to understand the key insights and trends, we summarized our findings into the following takeaways:
PERSONA
From our research findings, we synthesized the data into a single fictional character. Zoe, our user persona, helps keep the team focused on the user and ensures the design solutions are user-centered.
SITE HEURISTICS
To understand the existing site’s usability, we performed a design heuristic evaluation using Nielsen Norman’s 10 principles. This is key to understanding what may be affecting user engagement and drop-off rates and informing the team how the site can be improved.
The following are some examples of our findings:
COMPETITIVE AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
After understanding our site’s usability, it is helpful to see what other sites are successfully doing and how.
PROPOSED CHANGES
With all of the gathered information, we went back to remember Zoe’s and Ilana’s needs before moving into proposed solutions.
With these goals in mind, we proposed the following changes:
We performed a usability test to check how clear our proposed changes were and the potential areas for improvements. From our tests, we learned a few adjustments could be made in terms of the location and hierarchy of things in order to improve ease of use. Below are examples of our findings and changes implemented:
USABILITY TEST
LATEST PROTOTYPE
NEXT STEPS
In terms of the proposed changes, our team recommends Ilana continue working on the following:
Test the prototype to see how it can be further improved
Get feedback from potential users
Work on a responsive design for mobile access for the collection
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
Based on the user interview findings for potential users who have an education on fashion design, the focus should be on Ilana’s goal to provide “the vital knowledge to start and scale their own clothing brands”.
With this goal in mind we recommend Ilana consider the following:
Provide a marketplace for the designers in the Community to sell their designs
Become an exclusive fashion brand incubator for emerging black designers
The ability for celebrities and influencers to see their designs and select to wear some of their pieces for brand awareness
The ability for investors to check out the emerging designers
Advice from experienced designers on how to create and successfully launch their own brands