Whering Redesign

Streamlining the upload journey for a digital wardrobe app, for a quicker, easier to navigate process that provides more useful outfit recommendations.

Spring - Winter 2024

Background

Launched in 2020, Whering is a digital wardrobe app which allows users to upload images of their clothes, shoes and accessories, to create outfits and keep track of what they wear. It aims to support more sustainable fashion consumption and use of clothes.

Problem

The app is revolutionary for better shopping habits, and managing your wardrobe, but can be impractical and difficult to use.

The outfit generator ('Dress Me') creates mismatched and impractical combinations that don’t account for the weather, season, or the clothes used.

Although it has a filter option for the season, many of my items don’t have the correct season tagged because each item needs to have a series of data fields filled out in the uploading process which is time-consuming. Especially when uploading multiple items, as the steps must be repeated for each item.

Therefore, many items don’t have their information accurately recorded, leading to outfit suggestions that are not useful.

Example of a mismatched outfit

Design Review

I evaluated the app’s strengths and weaknesses for two key user journeys: uploading an item and, generating an outfit.

I went through both journeys paying attention to each step, collecting screens and reviewing the user experience for these processes.

This helped identify pain points and opportunities to streamline interactions, from which I developed problem-level hypotheses to test in user research.

User Research

Four users were recruited from the School of UX cohort.

During testing, users were asked to screen share, allowing me to observe their interactions in real time. They were prompted to think out loud when completing the two tasks: uploading items and generating outfits.

A thematic analysis was conducted on Mural and findings were compared against problem hypotheses to identify key areas of focus for the redesign.

Insights

Users were interested in the concept of the app and keen to try it out.

However, after a while completing the tasks, they grew frustrated finding the uploading process tedious and repetitive. They were confused about the information they needed to provide and the outfits they generated.

Pain point #1

Uploading an item

Confusing subheadings

Users felt confused about what information to expect to see under each sub-section, making it difficult to navigate and evaluate whether they should click on it.

Unclear priorities

Many users skipped key steps, forgetting as they became impatient. They appeared unsure about which pieces of information were most important and why.

Slow process

Users found the uploading and review process slow and tedious, leading to frustration, particularly uploading multiple items in succession, and selecting colours.

Pain point #2

Hypotheses

Pain point #3

H1 & H2 | False

All users selected a colour but some forgot to do so towards the end

Generating an outfit

H3 | True

Many users were unsure if had chosen the correct colour they intended to

H4 & H5 | Partially True

Most users entered the season at some point but gave up towards the end

H6 | Partially True

Several users found the outfit combinations random and unhelpful

H7 | False

Most used the filter option but were unhappy with the outfits they received

H8 | True

All users said they would not go back to correct the information entered for items

Design

Three aims were defined for the redesign, and mind maps illustrate the different concepts and features considered to achieve each and ultimately, addressing the key pain points identified through user research.

Areas of focus were improving information presentation, ease of completion, and engagement throughout the uploading process.

Information Architecture

The current information architecture for the uploading process was mapped out capturing the subheading for each section and their data fields.

Data fields were clustered into groups by their goal e.g., styling, then labelled to be more informative. This distributed fields evenly across subheadings.

Sections were numbered based on what users prioritised when uploading. Fields less valued by users were placed in later groups, such that, ‘Styling’ included the most valued information.

Sketches

UI

As Whering is a start-up, they do not have a publicly available design system. To identify its UI elements, I used the Inspect tool on Google Chrome to obtain Whering’s font family and colour palette to recreate in Figma.

Screens were designed in Figma, and made to look similar to the original designs and adding subtle design changes where necessary.

Click to enlarge

View the prototype

Different ways of presenting the higher-priority data fields were explored through rough sketches.

This focused on colour and season selection, then the CTAs and spacing to encourage users to fill out more data fields rather than skip through.

Information architecture was reviewed and restructured simultaneously.

Prototyping

The screens were prototyped in Figma for a realistic uploading experience. This included overlays, and a functional navigation bar, which allows users to move through the different sections, and interact with input fields.

Conditional statements and variables were used to create the usage counter where users can enter the number of times they have worn an item.

The Outcome

The uploading flow was redesigned to make the experience clearer, faster, and more intuitive. By prioritising key fields like colour and season on the first page and distributing others more evenly across sections, the process is streamlined for users.

Encouraging users to complete these fields, it has a domino effect as users are more likely to receive useful outfit recommendations later on.

A fourth section was added for low-priority fields, to remove clutter and small visual tweaks make the interface feel cleaner and create a more pleasant interaction.

Impact

Driving Growth through Personalised User Engagement

The redesign creates a smoother experience allowing users to upload clothes faster and more intuitively.

In direct support of Whering's B2C freemium model, according to CEO Bianca Rangecroft, which focuses on driving growth by increasing user engagement and through organic word of mouth.

Encouraging users to upload their clothes more accurately allows the outfit generator to deliver more personalised, relevant outfit recommendations; directly supporting Whering’s mission to provide hyper-personalised styling experiences, boosting engagement and encouraging users to share features like the outfit-generator tool, driving growth and brand awareness.

Reflections

Users recruited for research, matched Whering’s target demographic but were not current users.

This may have influenced the accuracy of findings, as they may not have used the app in a way that was representative of how real-world users do. Nevertheless, their feedback was valuable and highlighted potential gaps which could be addressed by:

Using other research methods which gather insight into the users’ day-to-day use in a more natural context e.g., diary studies or ethnography
Encouraging participants to recreate casual use to bridge the gap between what tasks they’re given and their realistic use of the apps

If I had more time I would have liked to

Explore users’ perspectives on the utility of the ‘Status’ field, considering the regularity of tasks like laundry versus more permanent actions like reselling or donating.
Conduct a card sorting exercise to ensure the revised information architecture it aligns with users' mental models.

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