Trued Apparel
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The Project
Equal parts content strategy and business strategy,
this project used UX methodologies to better understand the target customer for my independent fashion company, Trued Apparel.
Through insights developed in this process, I established next steps to improve web content strategy for the Trued Apparel Shopify site, as well as set goals for future product development that more closely aligns with customer needs.
Team
Solo Project
Scope
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UX Research
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Content Strategy
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Product Ideation
Timeline
Two weeks
Overview
Background
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Trued Apparel in a local, independent, ecofriendly clothing line run by Melissa Woods and a small production team based in Boston, MA.
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The brand pairs a dark minimalist aesthetic with practical, layerable pieces, with some styles offered in a full size range from XS - 3X.
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The Ask
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Establishing rankings of content with highest utility to user
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Placing content in screen areas of highest utility
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Improving content writing to server the user best
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Priorities
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UX Research
In this project, I focused on heuristic evaluations, user interviews, and affinity mapping to uncover trends in user behavior and preferences.
Questions to answer
How do users prefer to navigate the website?
What types of content are they most interested in?
Are there customer needs not currently being met?
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User Interviews
Our initial discussions hinted at a solution rooted in mutual community-based support. Subsequent user interviews revealed that "stability" for users required fortifying supports that are not only social and emotional, but more concrete, like robust healthcare and financial resources.
We initiated a broad market analysis of competitors in the LGBTQ+ space (like The Trevor Project, Center on Halstead in Chicago, and the Born This Way Foundation) and among other functional competitors for event listing and networking (like EventBrite, MeetUp and Bumble Friends). Crafting questions around our hypothesis of event networking as a service to the community, we conducted interviews with our target user group.
Image: Affinity Mapping revealed clear themes in event type preference (online or in-person), definitions of strong community and the importance of career resources.
Some takeaways were as follows:
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Financial security provides greatest stability and wellbeing for users
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Learning new skills has also led to increased stability and wellbeing for users
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Events are a common pathway to creating new social connections
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Users are most comfortable with people that are like-minded
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Users often seek out close, personal connections when in need of support (friends before family)
User interviews confirmed our thinking around the benefits of peer-to-peer as well as mentorship supports. For example, the majority of interviewees explained that while emotional support from family is important, that it is easier to open up to friends or a paternal figure/ mentor who is not an actual parent. While validation of their sexuality and gender orientation was highly valued, almost all interviewees also stressed the need for financial support and self-sufficiency to undergird their sense of wellbeing.
Next came crafting a user persona and problem statement to focus our ideation.
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User Persona
Anna
34 years old
Lives in Philadelphia
Graduate student in English Literature
Behaviors
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Enjoys making thoughtful and deliberate choices
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Independent and values counter-culture
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Not afraid to be or look different
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Can align with the goth subculture
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Would like to have eco-friendly consumer habits, but is more focused on topical products like self-care and makeup than clothing
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Goals
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To buy clothing that is unique while still being wearable
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To express her own distinct sense of style
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Can take pride in supporting small or independent brands
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Needs
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Go-to clothing that won't break the bank
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A reasonable return policy in case something doesn't fit
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To know enough about the garment up front via website before buying
Frustrations
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Not finding enough brands that speak to her sense of style
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Finding unique pieces that are somewhat affordable
Problem Statement
Anna needs to find a unique clothing brand that matches her aesthetic so that she might express her fashion sense in a way that aligns with her values, pocketbook, and self-image as a subtle counterculturist.
Refining the Product
We now have a clickable prototype ready to be put in front of users. Let's see what they do.
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Questions to answer
Are users encountering difficulty using the prototype?
If so, how can we fix it?
Are our changes improving the user's experience?
User Tasks
We conducted two rounds of usability testing, first with our mid-fidelity wireframe, and then again with our high-fidelity wireframe after some iterations. Our three user tasks are below.
Task 1:
Show me how you’d find and reserve your spot for a casual crafting meetup.
Task 2:
Show me how you’d find a sexual health primary care provider in your area.
Task 3:
Show me how you’d find and reserve your spot for an upcoming career networking function.
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In Round 1, 12 out of 15 users (80%) completed each task in 1 minute or under; all 15 completed the tasks within 2 minutes.
User errors clustered around the navigability of the sexual health resources, and use of pagination for browsing on the events listing pages. We rewrote some headers, tweaked the look and placement of our pagination, and refined further.
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In Round 2, 8 out of 9 users (89%) completed each task in 1 minute or under. We tested 6 additional users that were less tech-savvy than average, just to see how accessible and intuitive the content was. Only 3 out of 6 (50%) completed each task in 1 minute or under, but there was a noticeable learning curve, as later tasks showed considerable improvement. Taking into account both the average and less tech-savvy users, all 15 completed each task within 2 minutes.
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Final Prototype
Our current prototype is the result of an initial prototype, one round of usability testing, one round of iteration, and a second round of usability testing to assess any change in user behavior. There will always be more features to improve, and new ways to smooth out the user journey; no prototype is truly final.
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Conclusion and Next Steps
Our clickable prototype is simple, clear, and easy to navigate. It has a well-articulated copy and a fully realised UI, including branding and color palette. We do, however, have more features to build out and opportunities to iterate further.
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For next steps, we'd like to:
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Build out the other sections available on the Services and Resources page
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Launch our donation page; this will be essential for funding the small but mighty brick-and-mortar cyber center and administrative office
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Keep testing pagination; While our iterations have shown improvement, we feel there is need to keep testing for further optimization
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Build out mentorship program, as this was an important takeaway from our user interviews