new metaphors

There’s nothing quite like the pain of waiting days, even weeks, for a shirt or some pants to arrive in the mail only for it to finally arrive and — surprise! It’s way too small. Or too short. Or way too long. Anything but your size. Then you’re forced to go through the tedious process of returning and repurchasing the item, which requires effort and even more patience, or leaving it in your closet to never see the light of day again. This issue is much more likely to have been encountered in recent months, as COVID and quarantine have plunged us into a time of increased online shopping, a practice that was already steadily climbing in popularity in the age of digitalization. As an avid online shopper myself, I’ve had my fair share of experiences with ill-fitting clothes, most of which are typically related to length (I’m 5'11!). So this week, I explored concepts and ideas dedicated to improving the online shopping experience.

How might we inspire confidence in the right clothing fit for online shoppers?

Brainstorming

Method #1 — SCAMPER — Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse:

The SCAMPER technique, created by Alex Osborn, proved helpful during the ideation process. I went back and forth between either substituting the online shopping experience completely, but found it over-ambitious — replacing the standardized experience of shopping online would be daunting not only for the countless retailers that already use it but the shoppers as well. A softer approach of modifying the process seemed a much more realistic and seamless move. Some questions to be considered:

• How could you change the shape, look, or feel of your product?
• What could you add to modify this product?
• What element of this product could you strengthen to create something new?

To answer these, let’s take a look at the current model of the online shopping experience. Here is an extremely popular retailer, as well as one of my most frequented online stores: ASOS.

Currently, ASOS (and most online stores) use a few methods to allow users to gauge a potential fit of their clothes:

• Size Guides: Generic measurements to standardize sizing across clothing retailers.
• Video Previews: Runway style videos of models wearing the advertised items.
• Model Size & Fit: Specific sizes of the model pictured.

However, these sizes tend to be inaccurate, misleading, and way too general to be of much use. Clearly, even ASOS is aware of how inaccurate their sizing can be, as they’ve taken steps to improve their sizing guide. Recently, they added a new tool called the “Fit Assistant” that claims to take customized sizing from customers to give a more accurate sizing prediction.

Buyer review of item

However these modifications don’t do much to address the issue of inaccurate generalizations and so buyers continue to struggle in choosing the right fit. So how then can we modify this service to better guide shoppers towards the exact fit?

By letting them try it on themselves! The online shopping model can be modified to include 3D modeling of the user in the clothes themselves, giving them a better gauge of what the clothes fit like in reality and inspiring confidence in purchases.

Method #2 — Design with Intent:

With a design concept in mind, the next step was to detail the specifics of the solution. I decided on using Dan Lockton’s Design with Intent for his clear, thought-provoking prompts. Although the toolkit is split into several ‘lenses’ into different fields of research, I found that cards from several lenses were relevant to the product, even forcing me to analyze it from different perspectives. Some of the most helpful cards include:

Metaphors — Buyers should consider the product as similar as possible to the experience of shopping in person. Personalizing avatars are extremely popular in the virtualization of real-life experiences (gaming, VR/AR, etc) to give users a more realistic and personal experience. Buyers can also think of building their 3D models as similar to avatar customization.

Simulation & Feedforward — Users should be able to preview their choices of clothing and accessories. Switching between sizes, colors and items should be available to them.

Assuaging Guilt — To motivate users, the product should be presented as an alignment with cleaner energy efforts. Less wasted efforts of shipping ill-fitting/unwanted clothes means fewer trucks delivering them, lower CO2 contributions, and less cardboard/packaging waste!

Prototyping

Online platform to allow users to add and modify measurements of their profiles.

Summary

There’s a lot of factors to consider here, such as the technical ability of 3D tools to render models dynamically, and a retailer’s willingness to integrate this product into an already existing model. However, the brainstorming techniques were a fantastic tool in inspiring thoughtful analysis and structuring my ideas into a cohesive final plan. Not only does this product align with our societal move towards virtualization and curating that virtual presence to accurately present a user’s personal preferences, I also believe it would accomplish our goals of inspiring confidence in the online shopping experience.