CLIENT
Candice – a persona.
STORY
This is Candice:
A 28-year-old woman, a marketing specialist, a knowledge and trends’s hunter in the fashion’s , beauty and technology.
While reading magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle and Vogue, Candice uses these publications as a source of inspiration and repertoire for her profession.
Once with the persona’s description above, we were left to find – my teammate and I – other Candices for a more accurate and updated analysis.
ROLES
UX Researcher, UI Designer, Interaction Designer.
DURATION
One week.
GOALS
Create a responsive digital platform for a magazine, newspaper or blog that meets Candice’s needs and goals.
CHALLENGE
- Create a fashion editorial in a one-week sprint.
- Work and share roles effectively in a two-member Design Team.
- Understand the fashion industry and explore disruptive values with a new product.
RESEARCH
A Desk Research
Understanding the fashion market in COVID times requires nothing more than googling and framing.
A New York Times’ article gave us a great clue:
“It’s that magazines were already a fraught business. It’s that many people have been re-evaluating their moral relationship with consumption. It’s that resentment and even rage has risen toward celebrities and other elites — a pampered pool of cultural figureheads who fill the pages of contemporary fashion publications.”
What’s the point of a fashion magazine now?
Moreover, we also found a Cosmopolitan’s research “Here is how shopping has changed since ppl decided to give a sh * t” (November, 2020), brilliantly illustrated by D’Ara Nazaryan:
Interviewing a 2020’s Candice
In addition to the information gathered, we still needed to understand:
- What has changed in Candice’s routine in the last few months?
- What is her motivation for reading?
- What is considered when choosing articles to be read?
- Does she have other information consumption habits?
- What are Candice’s frustrations when searching for news?
In order to create extra insights, we interviewed a Digital Strategist, adding more complexity to our Candice:
- Once living in a pandemic scenario and working from home, her reading hours, previously administered on public transportation and waiting queues, were redirected to her mornings and short breaks during home office hours.
- She usually reads clippings, isolated articles, always in digital format and rarely an entire magazine.
- Choosing articles has always been linked to her personal and professional values such as cultural knowledge, DIY, market trends, awareness about sustainable topics, second-hand clothes, local and small and eco-friendly business, among others.
- Feeling a connection with her reality also motivates her like when her friend was on the Vogue‘s cover story – artisan and stylist Adriana Meira – exploring the concept of handmade pieces that represent the sertão (one of the four sub-regions of the Northeast Region of Brazil).
- Among the apps and websites used to consume information are: Meio & Mensagem, LinkedIn, Instagram and Spotify, an audio streaming provider in which she has listened to several podcasts, mainly after the quarantine started.
SYNTHESIS
So, What’s Candice’s Problem?
Magazines like Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan were originally designed to bring fashion trends, lifestyle and wellness to their readers.
As noted, such publications are beginning to give more space to ethical fashion – addressing sustainability consciousness, social causes and racial and gender issues.
However, there is still a shortage of articles involving this theme, causing a feeling of mismatch with the readers’ reality and reducing the desire to consume an entire magazine, only clippings.
IDEATION
In this way, a new concept was born:
Mixing the complex meanings of the word Soul – from the incorporeal essence of a living being to a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the 1950s – with its sonority which sounds like “I am” in Portuguese, SOUL was placed on the left side of the word “Você”, which means “You” in Portuguese.
As a result, the Soul Você editorial – digital magazine, collection of articles – was thought to represent what the classic fashion industry has lost, a less materialistic approach to clothing, a space for slow and sustainable fashion.
Sustainable fashion means fewer products but of a higher quality, mostly handcrafted or semi-crafted, secondhand or upcycled, ethically-made – where all workers are paid a living wage – made from natural, renewable or locally-produced materials.
SOUL Você – App Map
User Flow
PROTOTYPE
Mid-Fidelity to High-Fidelity Prototype
After some Design Critique from our peers and mentors, some repairs were made.
The result was as follows:
For more details you may test the high-fidelity prototype on Figma.
TECH AND TOOLS
- Whimsical.
- Figma.
LESSONS LEARNED
- What slow fashion is.
- The pandemic has made many people more aware of sustainable fashion – secondhand or upcycled and ethically-made clothing.
- How important moodboards are when creating a fashion editorial (or any design product), giving a “soul” to a product and guiding UI decisions.
WHAT IF THERE WAS A NEXT SPRINT?
- Collection and selection of content to enrich the editorial.
- Conduct usability tests and keep improving the app’s interface.
- Improve and test accessibility features.
Victor’s Portifolio 