Giving your cloths a second life makes you happier
By: Mellisa Inder
Tags: Prototyping, Clothing, Happy, Community, Educate

UX/UI : 15 days — Team of 2

Less than 1% of clothing are recycled. We are working on an app that helps educates people about fashion pollution and help clothing have a longer life, but how do my teammate Morgan Brabessa and I got there ?

Data from Survey, interviews and research

First thing — Some numbers about textile industry

Source : Study Ellen MacArthur ,2017

As you can read, 65000 km is the distance to produce a cloth from the field to the store. The scariest number is 1 billion cloths are produced every year and less that 1% are recycled !

Ecologic behavior and relationship with clothing (survey and research)

People are used to separate their trash, pay attention to use of water… and are more and more sensitive about the planet.

They are aware of the textile industry pollution, but not about figures. For example, the textile industry uses a lot of water. It would be responsible for 20% of the pollution of the world’s water, because of the dyeing and treatments of our textiles are particularly polluting. People are not aware about

When people don’t want to keep the clothes anymore, they throw them away or give them to charities. Many use this option out of convenience. Also, they are not informed about other options. Some of them would have liked to keep their clothes but did not have an option for repair and preferred to get rid of them.

If I had known how to repair my clothes, I could have kept it. User sentence from interview.

Many have a sentimental attachment and find it difficult to throw them away. Others drop off in dumpsters for recycling but are not informed about the recycling process at all.

People are not informed about the decomposition of materials in clothing. The first criterion of a garment is the purchase price. They do not have the notion of buying better for the planet.

The wellness by having ecological habits

How can we create well-being for people about clothing? Well-being comes from the fact that people are aware that their actions are going in the direction of the planet. Many do not have a totally ecological habits but are aware that they are participating in their own way by doing actions for the planet, on a small scale.

“The key is to reduce consumption and not just buy green stuff. Having less and buying less can actually make us more satisfied and happier,”

The pain points

After analyzing the data, the most important point is that people don’t know the options once a piece of clothing is damaged or they no longer wish to keep it.

Please meet Emilie. Our research of user behaviors are synthetised here.

Emilie has a small budget to buy her clothes. She’s attached to them. It really bothers her to have to part with it, because she is not informed of the solutions that could help her keep it.

But at what point in the process is Emilie frustrated?

In the journey map, there are 2 points of frustration, the moment when she damages her clothes and the moment when she can’t find a solution that would suit her.

Journey flow of Emilie

Emilie, could represent people among those who are not aware of her options when it comes to not be informed about it.

How could we educate Emilie on eco consumption, to extend the lifespan of her clothes, increasing her satisfaction by reducing the environmental impact?

To simplify, how could we make Emilie happier ?

Educate is to know the impact of the textile industry on natural resources, the possibilities to give a second life to her clothes, she no longer wants.

Accompany her to know her options, and prioritize repairing her clothes when possible through a tutorial.

Contributing to Emilie’s well-being by making her happier

An app to raise Emilie’s awareness and let her know her options when she wants to get rid of a piece of clothing.

The flow : repair a jean

Emilie have a damage (hole) on her jean. She does not want to get rid of it, so she decided to see what could be her options. She chooses to repair it by herself.

Low-fi and testing (paper and pen)

Story board and Paper prototype after iteration

Tests results with users:

- identify information that does not make sense

- elements that are not consistent

- simplify the number of screens (initially 12)

- don’t bludgeon the user with green messages: many found that there were a lot of green messages.

Mid-fi digital prototype on Sketch with Invision : test

In black and white, it allowed:

- to see the tester navigate from screen to screen

- to pick up on any blocking points

- adjust the items on the page

- focus on awareness messages about the textile industry

High-Fi prototype

Moodboard

Our goal is to offer several options to give new life to a garment by prioritizing repair option. New life is like a new cycle of life passing through the seasons, nature renewing. Recycle is DIY, a concept not to throw away but give a different purpose to an object. To finish, adding happy people to communicate this strong feeling.

Style Tyle

We have chosen fresh colors to recall the renewal of nature. Icons has been done for consistency and help identify the type of clothing.

Style tyle

Iteration on High-fi

This step asks the user to specify the size of the damaged area in cm. Users have no idea of what a “cm” is and have difficulties indicating the size.

→ We have simplified the functionality that allows the user to enter information to assess the damaged area. He now has to surround the damage area.

Iteration

Video prototype

Below the flow on this prototype, Emilie chooses

- what she wants to do,

- the type of cloths,

- precise where the damage is

- and have a diagnostic.

In addition in the user flow :

to motivate Emilie by repairing DIY, she can be part of the community by sharing her work.

A way for her to see what others do, but also to accentuate the feeling of belonging to a group of people who have the same motivations.

Video of prototype

Prototype — Second life

Next step of the app

Buy/Sell : allow user to buy and sell items on the app.

Create a community that share the idea of giving their cloths a second option because they are aware of the textile pollution.

Educating users about new initiatives in plastic processing, plastic recycling, fair fashion, etc.

What i have learned

Team work : collaborate work on Invision, on ideas and prioritizing my work.

Users give a lot of insight — always be an empathizer.

Testing and iterations at all steps > help make your solution better and create one that will be used how the user wants, from there improve loyalty from him.

Thanks for reading me.