ClosetConnect
Fashion Tech
ClosetConnect is a wardrobe management app that helps users make the most of what they already own. Initially conceived as a social trading platform for fashion enthusiasts, it evolved into an AI-powered tool focused on sustainable and personalized styling recommendations that help people make smarter use of their existing wardrobe.
Role
Design Lead (UX/UI), User Research, Strategy
Tools
Figma, Qualtrics, Notion
Team
2
Context
Motivation
ClosetConnect is a design project focusing on sustainable fashion and wardrobe management. Through conversations with peers, we identified several common challenges:
Overloaded wardrobes causing stress and decision fatigue
Difficulty in making outfit decisions despite having many clothes
Challenges in adapting to fluctuating weather conditions
Uncertainty in styling and combining different pieces
These personal wardrobe management issues not only affect individual well-being but also contribute to larger sustainability concerns in the fashion industry. Our team aims to develop a solution that addresses both the user experience and environmental aspects of this problem.
Discover
What did we find
To explore this challenge thoroughly, we conducted surveys, interviews and persona-building exercises
Survey Insights:
On average, users owned $268.44 worth of unworn clothes,
37% believed reducing wardrobe size would ease morning stress.
Interviews:
After conducting interviews with 15 USC students and alumni, our team’s findings revealed that:
9 out of 15 interviewees made impulsive clothing purchases driven by trends, later regretting their decisions.
8 out of 15 interviewees admitted to not fully utilizing the clothes in their wardrobe.
10 interviewees disclosed experiencing stress due to overcrowded wardrobes.
Meet Our User Personas 🙌🏻 : After conducting online research and interview, we've developed three user personas that encapsulate the diverse range of people who will interact with our product.
Pain Points were discovered:
Unworn Clothes
Daily Styling Stress
Wardrobe Overload
Ideation & Brainstorming
How we explored the potential solutions
We mapped out solutions—both digital and lifestyle-based—to solve these 3 pain points. We explored concepts like:
Clothing swap platforms
Outfit-planning apps
Capsule wardrobe education
Mindful shopping reminders
Style inspiration feeds
We then returned to our interviewees, gathered feedback, and distilled our ideas into 5 potential solutions—grouped into two focus areas:
App-Focused
Mobile app for mindful shopping
App to recommend outfits from owned clothing
Platform for clothing swaps/sales
Behavior-Focused
Capsule wardrobe guides
Styling education: one-in-one-out, seasonal rotation
Competitive Analysis
We also did a comparative analysis of existing products that address these pain points and revisited those competitors after the user research. Our goal was to draw inspiration from their solutions and work towards enhancing the existing solutions.
Our After doing competitive analysis, we identified three areas that haven’t been explored by the existing applications in the market and decided to focus our design on improving those aspects:
None of them has a direct solution for users’ overloaded wardrobe.
None of them curate a style feed or support keyword searching.
These apps' outfit recommendations failed to consider important factors such as the user's skin tone, makeup, dressing style, and color choices.
Therefore, we decided to focus on building a fashion app that can:
🔅 digitize users' closets
🔅 allow users to make friends and trade clothing with them
🔅 empower users to find fashion inspiration through the app's feed and their friends' outfit posts
to address these pain points.
Design & Scope
Low-Fidelity Exploration
We started with designing Closet digitization flow, visual closet overview, friends’ outfits browsing & trade (early concept)
Users can add their outfit to the digital closet by scanning their item or taking a photo of their outfit.
We want to have a visual representation of users’ closets on their phone
Users can explore their friends’ outfit so that they can trade with them
Guerrilla usability testing
We performed Guerrilla usability testing with 15 users on a low-fidelity prototype using Figma and got some great feedback on assessing task efficiency, validating design decisions, and improving accessibility.
New Scoping:
Many participants reported that they were unsure about the capabilities of our app, particularly the trading feature. Considering the lack of developers on our team, time constraints, and the potential expenses involved in developing a trading feature, we concluded that it would be impractical for us to pursue this option as a solution to the issue of wardrobe overload. As a result, we decided to change our approach and focus on providing an AI-based styling recommendation algorithm that considers users’ preferences and interests.
Mid-fidelity Wireframes:
Me Page Navigation
Explore Page Navigation
AI Styling Recommendation
Hi-fidelity Wireframes:
Users can quickly generate an outfit based on their preferences.
Users can save outfit for a specific date on the calendar
Users can look through the explore page for outfit inspiration
Process Deck
See Process Deck for more information about the project.
Reflection
What I learned from this project
📌 A realistic vision for the platform: My teammates and I envisioned a platform that would serve as both a private virtual closet and a social media hub for connecting people with similar fashion preferences, fostering friendships, providing fashion inspiration, and trading unused items. However, as we delved into the project, we realized that this expansive scope was challenging to achieve within our resources and time constraints. This realization underscored the importance of setting realistic goals and expectations from the outset of future product development endeavors.
📌 The technical limitations during the development process: As we aimed to provide a 3D presentation within the virtual closet app, we realized that addressing this requirement would require specialized technical expertise. Considering the limitation, we recognize the need to explore potential collaboration with a proficient development partner or an experienced backend engineer who can help overcome these technical challenges and facilitate the seamless implementation of the 3D presentation feature.
📌 Importance of lean methodology: In the process of developing the product, we highlighted the value of using lean methodology to validate product ideas and minimize waste. By focusing on creating a minimum viable product (MVP) and testing it with users, we were able to rapidly iterate and make improvements based on customer feedback.