UX Case Study: To reduce the environmental effect of fast-fashion.
For this UX case study I was inspired by one of the prompts from Productdesign.tips’s, focusing on reduction of bad environmental effects occurring via shopping(especially from online cloth shopping and fast-fashion). This is a personal project and is not associated with H&M in any way.
Background
Humanity faces no bigger threat than climate change and unfortunately, the clothes sitting in our closet seem to be contributing an awful lot to it. The fashion industry is responsible for around 5% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions — more than aviation and shipping combined. The problem is exacerbated by the fast fashion trend of recent years. We’re buying more clothes than ever before, wearing them fewer times, repairing them less, and throwing them away sooner.
What most people don’t realize is that just by taking small measures, i.e., by wearing our clothes longer, recycling & re-using them we can make a significant difference.
“Extending the life of clothes by 9 months would reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by around 20–30% each and cut resource costs by £5 billion”-WRAP(Waste and Resources Action Program) UK
Hence, we aim to design a feature that’ll make the existing clothes last longer.
Audience
Even though most of the consumers seem to be consuming and outgrowing clothes in a reckless manner, a survey conducted to test consumer sentiment on sustainability in fashion revealed that consumers have become even more engaged in sustainability topics than before(The mentioned survey was conducted among European consumers).
This promising result lead me to dig deeper into the demographics of these consumers. Gen-Z & Millennials are the major target audiences for fast-fashion. Among them, Millennials are the more sustainability-conscious generation and can be a good target audience for this project. But I also aim to aware and attract the Gen-Z consumers towards good fashion practices.
People from these generations are more likely to adapt to a new feature of an app and hence are the perfect target for such a project.
So, I will be focusing this project around Millennial & Gen-Z consumers.
Challenge
Designing a feature for an online shopping app that will make the clothes be used for longer duration and prevent extra production of the fabrics.
Products
There are several fast-fashion retailers already shifting their focus into promoting sustainability among their consumers. Some of them are listed below:
- Zara (Join Life)
- H&M (Conscious)
- Uniqlo
- Mango
- Asos
Why H&M
H&M is one of the biggest clothing retail companies in the world. I figured, if provided solutions for a successful existing application, adopting it would make an impact on a bigger audience. Also, H&M has one of the best records when it comes to promoting sustainable practices and transparency among its consumers.
When I researched brands that can communicate a solution in best way & also fit the plan to its business goals, I came across H&M.
H&M has a campaign called “Garment Collection”. Customers can dump their idle clothes to a local store and H&M will either re-use or recycle them depending on their quality and the customer will earn a discount.
Through this case study, I aim to take this one step further by introducing this feature for online stores as well. This way, people who don’t have an H&M store nearby can also join the campaign. This will result in more recycling of the clothes.
Validating insights
I took a survey to sharpen the target audience, to learn their awareness and point of view on this problem, and understand how to convince them to join the Garment Collection campaign and take sustainable measures.
I got on call and discussed about online-shopping, fast-fashion and sustainability with 7 people from different backgrounds, 3 of whom are regular H&M shoppers. I noted down every single point separately.
On addition to it, I scrapped through existing blogs on several existing surveys. And watched many many shopping haul videos by influencers on YouTube, except this time I watched them to understand the behavior and mindset of these users and also noted down their reviews on H&M.
Synthesize findings
I noted all the key points from my interviews and created an affinity map.
The survey helped me answer the following questions;
- Why do people today shop more clothes than required?
Most people are negligent towards the problem. Some people do not know what to do with the extra clothes. And many have attached sentiments towards shopping and how they dress-up.
- What are some user pain-points while shopping online?
Regular shoppers need more money or discounts, they want clothes for cheaper. Whereas, responsible people want to keep in mind the well being of environment, but don’t really know how to contribute.
- What hurdles do people face when trying to practice sustainability?
Many don’t understand the depth of the problem. And the ones who do, don’t know how to contribute.
Ideation
User personas
How might we?
- How might we help reduce the excessive production of garments?
- How might we make the existing garments be recycled instead of wasted?
- How might we encourage people to participate in the Garment Collection program online?
- How might we include a chunk of population, who won’t compromise on shopping recklessly, in this campaign somehow?
- How might we make this interesting & rewarding for people?
Solution
H&M has already taken many great initiatives and introduced campaigns for this issue. My job as a UX designer is to design an additional experience to their application in order to optimize the results (to get more clothes recycled).
I shortlisted 3 H&M initiatives and studied them;
- Garment Collection
H&M wants you to drop your bag of unwanted garments at your local H&M store. They will then sort them out into 3 categories; reware, re-use & recycle. The customer earns a discount voucher in return.
Problem : This is applicable only when there’s a local store near you. But H&M has a wide range of customers, many from the places with no stores nearby. Hence, designing a feature for making it possible online would bring more customers into the campaign.
- Sellpy
Sellpy is H&M’s online 2nd hand shop. They help people sell used clothing and other items they no longer need.
Problem : Many people don’t know about this. It is growing for sure but if there were more promotions for this store, more people would buy used clothes rather than something new.
- Conscious points
Conscious points are provided each time a customer chooses to by a product from their conscious line.
Usability : This reward system can be used to encourage more people to join the online garment collection campaign.
I will be focusing on designing an experience for online garment collection.
How will it work?
- Whenever a user will check-out an item, they’ll be provided with an option to opt for garment collection.
- Once opted in, the day item will be delivered, the delivery man will collect their garments as well.
- After their garment bag has reached the store and been scanned, the owner will be provided with a discount voucher and conscious points on their account.
General flow of the feature
H&M already has a reward system, so I incorporated my idea into the existing information architecture.
How will the users benefit from it?
- De-cluttering of closet
- Discounts
- User can update the wardrobe by giving away un-used clothes
- Responsible users can shop guilt free
How will H&M benefit from it?
- Green recognition
- Increase engagement and exposure
- A positive business opportunity
Deliver
Storyboard
User Flow
Sketching
Wireframes
Feature incorporated into existing H&M screens.
Testing
The initial success metrics (if this was a real project), would be to successfully run a demo among the users(both customers and H&M employees) and see if they are actually compatible with the user flow or not. From there, I would iterate feedback, enhance motivations if needed, and test out new features and edge-cases.
Estimated results
Did we solve customers’ problems?
- Persona 1: She can keep updating her wardrobe by opting for Garment Collection and earning rewards/discounts for her next shopping spree.
- Persona 2: She can contribute in re-use and recycle of clothes through H&M without compromising on her shopping.
Did we reduce the environmental effect of fast-fashion?
“In 2019, H&M Group collected 29,005 tonnes of textiles for reuse and recycling through our garment collecting initiative — equivalent to about 145 million T-shirts.”
This is a staggering figure. By making this feature online, more people will join this campaign and a lot more textiles can be re-used or recycled. Hence, this plan can successfully reduce the excessive production of textiles.
Non- application related solutions
- Promote Sellpy
- Show banner ads every fortnight or so to aware people about H&M’s sustainability program
- Make people realize of how harmful textile production can be, by showing them comparative data.
Thankyou for reading this case study 😄
Lemme know what you think !
