Fast fashion has emerged as a popular choice for clothes shopping, particularly among the younger generation, driven by its affordability and the allure of constantly changing styles. However, these lead to more frequent purchases and disposal, which most of the time, are oftentimes not necessary.
The challenge then, is to find effective ways to shift consumer's awareness towards the sustainability issues inherent in fast fashion industry and to encourage more eco-friendly purchasing habits.
Fast fashion has emerged as a popular choice for clothes shopping, particularly among the younger generation, driven by its affordability and the allure of constantly changing styles. However, these lead to more frequent purchases and disposal, which most of the time, are oftentimes not necessary.
The AI chatbot assistant, designed as an anthropomorphic Earth character, offers everything from outfit ideas to monthly closet summary. It pops up from time to time with tips and suggestions. As users scan and browse items, its appearance changes based on the item’s sustainability, prompting eco-conscious decisions in a friendly manner.
To help users manage and create outfits on a personal level, EcoVoice offers daily outfits inspirations for various life situations. Outfits are generated based on weather and user’s existing clothing collection, encouraging users to utilize their wardrobe more effectively while exploring different styles and ways to pair their items.
Along with other information such as price, brand, color, we integrated another metric “sustainability” and used colored leaf icons to represent the score. When scanning and browsing items, users can view detailed information with specific features related to environment and sustainability.
Eco-impact is measured through a visualization dashboard that highlights users’ achievements and sustainable behaviors. Additionally, a “Wardrobe Highlights” feature lists out the most and least worn items on a monthly basis, to better inform users about their styling habits and encouraging the discovery of hidden gems in their wardrobe.
In order to comprehensively explore the problem space, we utilized a dual approach - conducted extensive desk research and firsthand data collection to deeply understand the challenges and needs from both consumer and service provider perspectives.
We conducted a comprehensive review of 10+ papers and journals focusing on sustainable fashion consumption, consumer attitudes towards sustainability, and their buying behavior, providing us valuable insights into the factors that drive fast fashion consumption and current challenge.
We interviewed 3 experts and practitioners in the field to gain insights into their experiences and perspectives on fast fashion and sustainability. These interviews revealed that some fast fashion companies have already begun implementing recycling practices, and to effectively appeal to consumers, we need to emphasize the benefits they will receive.
We recruited 8 participants from our target population for two 30-minute online focus group sessions. Using the “New Metaphors” design thinking technique, we facilitated discussions about participants’ attitude towards fast fashion, their reasons for purchasing fast fashion items, and their feelings and methods for handling clothes they no longer wear or want.
We gathered valuable insights through desk research, interviews, and focus group sessions to validate our user needs. By synthesizing these findings, we defined and prioritized 4 key insights to guide our design opportunities.
We brainstormed ideas through rapid sketching and narrowed down our focus into two main design directions. To flesh out the two approaches, our process unfolded across three stages - we started off by testing whether the concepts have the potential to be persuasive; then refined our designs to enhance the persuasiveness; in the final stage we fine-tuned features and designs to improve overall usability.
For initial testing, we created a hypothetical scenario to simulate the shopping experience in a fast fashion store, and instructed participants to either scan the item to obtain information, or chat with their personal wardrobe assistant.
Both concepts demonstrated some level of effectiveness: out of 12 user testing, around 33% of the participants either gave up purchasing the item or would go for a more eco-friendly alternative. The results indicated that both strategies have the potential to raise user’s awareness on fast fashion sustainability and prompt more eco-aware decision. Our next step is to enhance their persuasiveness.
Recognizing the potential of our concepts to raise awareness and shift perspectives, and more excitingly, to influence actions, we pivoted to develop strategies that enhance persuasiveness. To achieve this, we adopted multiple cognitive-behavioral theories.
We included "off-topic" features like wardrobe management and daily outfit inspirations, while placing "on-topic" features one click away. This approach avoids direct persuasion towards eco-friendly options. Instead, it shifts user attention to some tangible benefits they can get. This helps reduce impulsive purchases in a more implicit manner, minimizing the risk of user reactance.
We designed our AI assistant as a cute, anthropomorphic Earth character that frequently appears on the screen to provide tips and suggestions. This aims to evoke a sense of being watched, and consequently, users may exhibit higher self-control and consider different perspectives. The character's facial expressions change based on the item's sustainability score.
One common theme that emerged from our testing was the importance of cost. To address this, I decided to highlight sustainable alternatives based on their price, bringing the most affordable choices to the surface. By doing this, users are more likely to be attracted to and explore sustainable alternatives.
Even subtle changes of colors and icons may have tangible impact on user experience. In the final iteration, we reflected on user feedback and testing results to fine-tune our prototypes.
This project is an end-to-end journey for me, as a co-lead in design, I saw my personal growth in terms of learning to make decisions and handle ambiguity, while collaborating with my teammates.
Initially, defining the problem space around fast fashion and sustainability was challenging. However, extensive user research helped me understand our users' needs, reframed the problem space and set actionable goals.
Balancing interactivity with user freedom can be tricky. Initially, our Earth chatbot frequently popped up to offer opinions on items users were browsing. However, testing revealed that constant interruption might annoy users and make them reluctant. I realized the importance of finding a subtle balance that maintains interactivity without being intrusive.