This is a university project in which we chose to develop an in-door large-screen "virtual fitting room". This system presents how a cloth can fit to customers who did not have enough time or they bored to try on the desired clothes. Also the system helps them to check easily the clothes' available sizes and colours without asking the saleswomen.
In this way customer can find quickly and effectively the cloth they want without using the dressing room and the salewomens can get away with time consuming tasks such as checking for clothes' available sizes and colours and tidying the dressing rooms.
Time Period: May 2009
Teamwork: Developed in collaboration with my classmate Pigi Lobotesi
Collecting Real Data
We came up with this idea based on the findings of the observations and the interviews that we did on the store with the store manager and the saleswoman. More specifically, we observed the employees on their working environment when they worked and we discussed with them what they did, how they did it and why (contextual inquiry).
Understannding the Problem - Working Models
Afterwards, we designed some working models in order to represent the working practises and find breakdowns for which we would design for.
The two flow models (Figure 1 & 2) helped us to identify how each of the two employees understood her role, her responsibilities, the communication that they have with the others people that interact in her working environment as well as the points that communication problems are arised.
Figure 1. Flow Model of the saleswoman that represents her responsibilities (in the center of the figure) and the relationship that she has with the other employees that she collaborates as well as the customers. The "thunders" represents the points where a problem arises and in the red rectangles are written a description of the problems
Figure 2. Flow Model of the store manager that represents her responsibilities (in the center of the figure) and the relationship that she has with the other employees that she collaborates as well as the customers. The "thunders" represents the points where a problem arises and in the red rectangles are written description of the problems
The sequence models (Figure 3 & 4) helped us to identify two important working activities, the case in which a customer ask for a specific cloth and the sitution in which the employee tidy the store during opening time and the problems that are arised on both these case.
Figure 3. Sequence Model that represents the customer service activity. In the center are the actions that are done, on the right the intent of the action and the thunders are points in which a problem is arised which are described on the left red rectangles
Figure 4. Sequence Model that represents how the employees tidy the store
Figure 5. Physical Model of the clothing store that represents the basic elements of the working space, the paths that users follow as well as the points that problems are arised
Data Consolidation - Interpetation of the Problem
Based on these observations as well as the working models that we present above we identify that the target group of those clothes are women between 15 and 35 years old that are mostly thin since the company has very small sizes. Because of the low prices also women between 40 and 50 years old sometimes buy clothes.
Figure 6. Affinity Diagram that represents the main parts of the working space where problems are arised
Figure 7. Consolidation Flow Model
The most frequent question of the customers are the available sizes and colours of a cloth as you can see on the Figure 7. The main problem that the customersface ia that they have to try the desired cloth before buying it because of the size differences. The continued use of the dressing rooms make the shopping slower for the customers.
The main problem that the employees have, and we can design for, is the number of times that it is needed to go to the storage room in order to check for the clothes' available sizes and colours.
So we decided that an in-door large-screen system can help the customers to be served faster and easier and the employees can spend less time going to the storage room in order to search for the available sizes and colours as well as tidying the dressing rooms.
For clarifying the users' needs and undrerstand better which are the necessary features of the system we designed two storyboards that describe cases of use of this prospective system,as you can see below.
Storyboards
Figure 8. Storyboard 1 presents a case of use in which the customer wants to check the availability of a cloth
Figure 9. Storyboard 2 that represents another case of use
Mockups
Afterwards we designed the mockups of this interactive system as you can see on the below figure based on the Tally Weijl brand's colours and typography that it used this period in its advertising material and its website.
