Despite the ever-growing rate of online shopping and the convenience it provides, people continue to prefer to shop at physical retail stores. However, fast fashion brands have failed to address long-standing customer pain points such as extensive checkout lines.
How might we harness the power of emerging digital technologies to address in-store customer pain points and create a seamless shopping experience?
Introducing Seamly, a B2B company that partners with fast fashion brands to innovate the in-store experience. Seamly integrates AR wayfinding, fitting room feature, and easy checkout in fast fashion apps that work seamlessly with their in-store smart mirrors. The new experience unifies the customer’s online and offline experience into one continuous journey.
Mobile design, smart mirror design
I led the research phase, illustrated the new customer journey, and worked on the UX and visual design of the mobile app. My teammate was responsible for designing the logo and the smart mirror experience as well as the videos of the final prototypes.
Jump to PrototypeWe began the project by first trying to understand the customers and the problem space. We conducted in-store research at shopping malls in order to evaluate problem areas and opportunity areas in the physical space. We also conducted an online survey to uncover customer behaviors and pain points with their in-store shopping experiences.
Based on our research, we created two empathy maps for two types of customers. We decided that empathy maps were a better option than personas because they could help us better understand the customers’ experience at fast fashion stores.
Using what we know about the customers and the physical space in the stores, we created a shopping experience map. We identified the different touchpoints in the customer experience and outlined their pain points at different stages of the journey. This helped us uncover specific opportunity areas for design.
Most customers “try on” clothes by looking at one of the store mirrors before deciding to go to the fitting room.
Customers shop in groups to seek second opinions from others when completing outfits.
Customers hesitate to ask for help from store associates in the fitting room because they’re often busy.
When shopping in stores, 70% of customers always or often use the fitting rooms.
Trying on clothes and not able to find the right fit.
Stores are overwhelming; too many things to look at.
Large crowds; waiting for a fitting room or to checkout.
One of our biggest research insights is that trying on clothes and finding the right fit is the number one motivator for customers to shop in stores, but it is also a huge pain point.
The new customer journey addresses problem areas related to finding items in store, trying on clothes, and waiting in line for a fitting room or to check out. The new app features and in-store smart mirror creates a seamless experience and combines online and offline shopping into one journey.
Once we determined the new customer journey for shopping in store. I worked on the user flow of how the customer might interact with the app. Some of the things I had to consider were how the app would work with the smart mirror, how the user would use the “Fitting Room” feature, and how to enable customers to purchase in-store items directly on the app.
Learning about the customers in the physical store environment helped us understand the problem space better. The insights we uncovered in the research phase drove the design decisions of how the smart mirror would be integrated in the store and how it would interact with the entire shopping experience.
Collaborating as a team, we leveraged each other’s design strengths in this project. I led and executed the UX phase while my teammate focused on the visuals and motion of the prototypes. By playing on each other's strengths, we were able to execute the solutions well.