To design a Fashion based app that can tell users the designer of clothing they've seen and admired and where to purchase, suggest new designers to try, and can connect users with fashion experts for style advice, sizing help, and general fashion questions. Here I have highlighted my process.

People sometimes need the advice of fashion experts but online videos and tutorials don't always cut it, and not everyone has a close friend or relative they can call for help.

UX Design Lead -Plan, create, conduct:

1.Competitive analysis 

2. User Interviews, User Stories, User Personas, User Journeys, and User Flows

3. Sitemap

4. Card Sorting 

5. Wireframes, and Low, Mid, High-fidelity prototypes

6. Usability Testing and Analysis

7. Ideate and Iterate

8. Style Guide

Iphone, Macbook, Figma, Behance, Zoom

Combined design thinking with a user centered approach to be sure to always keep the user at the forefront of our mind at every turn

Competitive analysis was conducted with a main competitor app to gather information about how FASHAPP will fit in the space. Since there were no competitors in the niche fashion expert sector, I chose Just Answer, a generic expert app. I identified the key objectives, overall marketing strategy, market advantage and marketing profile and used a SWOT profile to determine their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Mission
The mission of this app is to allow users to connect with a Fashion expert in their area of choice whether it be for styling advice, easy alterations, or just general fashion questions.

Target Audience
People ages 18+ who are interested in connecting with fashion expert for many reasons ranging from styling advice, cutting/ sewing/draping techniques, or just general fashion knowledge/trivia.

Competition
There are alot of fashion apps but not exactly the kind I am creating. My app is more about connecting the user with a fashion expert who can offer advice and answer questions rather than actually curate a wardrobe and send them clothes. I’ve also noticed that many of the apps have only one feature where as I want to be the one stop shop and have all of these features.

Risk/Opportunity
Even though my app is completely different from what is currently available, it may still get lost among the other fashion related apps. Hopefully, if we market ourselves well enough we can stand out from the crowd and distinguish ourselves as the app that offers true fashion expertise

Conclusions
There will be challenges and we have to make sure we build an app that's captivating and market ourselves very well to stand out and distinguish ourselves from the other fashion styling apps/ companies

1. Create a competitive application that has the ability to gain market share
Measured by: Initial user tests and market size estimates.
Delivered by: 2-3 months from start date.

Measured by: Signup count within first 30 days.
Delivered by: 30 days after product release.

Measured by: # or referrals from happy clients
Delivered by: 3-5 months from start

1.Mobile application (iphone & android)

2. Marketing Plan

3. Partnership plan with fashion experts

4. Instagram Account

•Splash screen
•Create Account/Log in
•Onboarding
•Search/browse fashion experts
•Create categories (sewing,draping, styling etc)
•Create face-to-face and audio call feature
•Create live chat feature
•Ability to upload photos of clothing seen on tv (or anywhere) and have an expert respond with the name of the designer
•Ability to upload clothing from your wardrobe to have expert put together outfits
•Ability to ask a random fashion question

Delivery Schedule​​​​​​​

3. User Analysis Here I set out to learn more about our users in an effort to empathize with their needs and the problems they encounter in this space to enable me to design an app that best solves these issues/ meets their needs.

Three people were interviewed: Renee, Jim C, Kyla M

Affinity Map- Their responses were clustered by category using an affinity map

Common Themes
• All check the weather before they choose their outfit for the day-perhaps my app can also include the weather and a suggestion of how to dress accordingly
• All have had at least one instance where they were unsure of what size to order when shopping online and could benefit from more customer reviews/ some sort of size guide.
• All have been unsure of what to wear on a special occasion(in this case all weddings) and would thus benefit from some type of assistance in this area
• Two have been frustrated with organizational issues- might be a good idea to consider a solution to this maybe closet organizing suggestions
• All have experienced a time when they saw someone wearing an item of clothing they liked whether in person or on tv and were interested to know the designer but were unable to find out
• All have had in instance where they wanted to learn more about a specific designer and/or their inspiration/ideas behind their collections.

In an effort to better connect with the users and empathize with their needs, wants, and frustrations, user personas were created to really focus on the human element.

User Scenario/User Journey​​​​​​​

Scenarios were created to help make the journeys a user would take to accomplish several main features of the app feel more relatable and to keep our minds focused on the user.

Piggy backing on the User scenarios, User flows were created to focus on the starting point and successful completion of a few of the main tasks.

Site Map V1 was created:

Card Sort was performed to test Site map

Overall, most of the participants sorted the cards as intended but there were definitely some key notes to consider. 

1. All 5 participants put the correct cards in the “Expert Connect” Category with the exception of the “Expert Connect” card which was really meant for the “Quick Fix” category.

2. For the “Find Designer” category, every participant correctly attached the card “New Designers For you”, and 4 out of the 5 correctly added “Upload photo”. However, 2 participants interestingly added the “Browse Customer Reviews” card which was intended for the “Sizing Help”category.

3. For the “Quick Stitch” category, all participants correctly attached “Browse Sewing Tutorials” and “Choose Sewing Topic” cards, but missed the “Expert Connect” card.

4. For the “Sizing Help” category, all 5 participants correctly attached the “Expert Size Suggestion” and “Upload size Profile” cards. Two missed the “Browse Customer Reviews” card, and one incorrectly attached the “Upload photo” card.

In this case, most of the incorrect sorts can be attributed to naming conventions so in Sitemap V2 I have updated the names of several cards and one category:

1. Initial sketches were created for the main screens of the app (Home, Find Designer, Sizing Help, Quick Stitch, Expert Connect)

2. Low Fidelity Wireframes were sketched for 3 of the main features of the App (Find Designer, Quick Stitch, Expert Connect)

3. Mid Fidelity Wireframes were created

4. High Fidelity Prototype (Gray Scale)

In order to get a better idea of the pain points our users would face in the real world, we conducted 6 moderated remote tests.

User Testing

1. Usability Test Plan

2. Usability Test Report

3. Affinity Map 

An affinity map was generated for each of the three tasks to better visualize commonalities. The results were grouped into the following groups: Observations, Positive, Negative, and Errors.

A preference test was conducted using 2 versions of the Sign Up/Log In screen to determine if there was an overall preference for one over the other. The results indicated that 80% of participants favored Screen 2.

1. Revise​​​​​​​- based on the discoveries from user testing, new versions of the screens were created

2. Grids were used to refine the spacing and sizing of the text, buttons, and form fields. Color was also added.

3. Peer Review process was conducted for another round of testing and resulted in several refinements and 2 new confirmation screens:

4. Designing for Accessibility- To ensure that my app is accessible for those with disabilities, a big change occurred at this step which was to change the color scheme from a white text on pink gradient that did not pass ADA contrast requirements to a white text on purple gradient.

6. Design Language- To give clients and stakeholders a better grasp of the visual aspects elements of my designs and and the rationale behind it, I developed a style guide to illustrate.