Research and development
Empathy Interviews
Design Thinking Phase 1 - Empathy - Data & Research - Observation- emersing in the user environment and through user interviews.
- Design thinking is based on an ideology (Democracy, Socialism, and Environmentalism)
- Empathising with your users - through a human-centered approach - user interviews asking probing questions.
- Create a flowing conversation rather than set questions - topics to start with and open questions that allow the user to have a conversation tell a story as if you were with a friend.
- Not to confirm a bias view or idea/insight.
- Ask friends who use instagram mix of people (demographic), create a questionnaire of open ended questions.
- From response's create a persons ( ideal customer) from answers (Research)
Empathy Interviews
The first phase of the design thinking process is the research and development stage which is done to delve into the user needs, through creating interview questions. To begin with the observer should get some information from the interviewee about their demographic: age. background, gender -identity, Location etc. The interviewer then can ask some open-ended questions so not to influence the interviewee. I asked 2 people both in the age bracket (20-30) both female who use instagram for fashion/shopping purposes. The results can be found based on the below questionnaires:
Q1) How would you rate Instagram and why?
- User doesnt like how Instagram is trying to imitate 'viral dancing reels' seen primarily on 'Tiktok', this is because it isnt an original and has been 'seen before' in the social networking world. It's main platform encourages 'very staged' photography. It is more to inspire and influence styling and the latest trends.
Q2) Do you follow fashion accounts and if so, how do you choose what you follow? and why?
- User follows fashion accounts that pop up in her feed, or recommended from what shes already looked at. What friends have been following, what celebrities have been following, as their is a 'virtual access to celebrities lives' through social media now. Does this to keep up with her friends and inspire her next outfit styling. User also buys from posts based on algorithym when scrolling through instagram.
Q3) Can you tell me a time when you went to a physical shopping store, what did you like about shopping in that store as compared with shopping online?
- User went into central London before christmas to go shopping went into shoe shops Schuh, Urban Outfitters, JD Sports, Office. Some of the stores are too attentive and some come across as not that bothered which the user prefers. This is a reason for why she likes online shopping. The user also says that she likes to shop at vintage shops to help with upcycling fashion buying into 'slow fashion' user states however, that shoes and boots are tricky to buy at vintage shops, so she would buy those online via Instagram, for example.
From looking at the results (findings) from the interview we can ask some key questions:
Are there any common links/themes amongst the users?
Are there any areas that we could've dug a little deeper?
Extra Questions:
How would you go about shopping for fashion purposes?
Can you tell me a time when you had a positive shopping experience?
Why do you think the online shopping scene has gained such popularity compared to that of physical stores?
Empathy group (course) interviews
User persona
As you can see above, this is a User Persona template with the tagline 'The Creative, Gen Zen butterfly as a memory aid to remind us of the user persona more easily. This User Persona covers the young creative person, who likes technology and uses it frequently, in work and socially. From these findings we can see that Instagram has naturally found a path that suits its format of high quality 'pretty' pictures that sell products. However the trust element is an area that needs to be worked on.
Group (course) Space saturate & affinity mapping
Problem statement
Problem statement
The above Brainstorm technique as seen above was used to link my user persona's problems based of my research findings to potential solutions.
I have summarised the key themes of the Algorithym, Authenticity and more exposure of brand identity/values.
RE-VISIT PHASE 1: SECONDARY ONLINE RESEARCH
I started my wider researching into the 'phygital' industry
and the latest Instagram/ social media , statistics from Adespresson by Hootsuite.
From my secondary, quantitative research, I found some interesting statistics/quotes:
"58% of users say they're more interested in a brand after seeing it in a story"
"86% completion rate based on brand stories"
"55.4% of influencers use Instagram stories for sponsored campaigns"
"Run sales and promotions campaigns after you've built a loyal and engaged following through other campaigns."
From my findings I found that the common theme running through is that, Instagram videos such as stories, live and reels gain more traction from users than any other feature on Instagram. This shows that the sense of movement, inter-activity and non-static media is becoming a key insight when thinking of human user-centred design.
From looking at The Fashion Studies Journal website I found quantitative secondary research that projects the future outlook of the industry...
From the case study by CINZIA MAGNANI, Revisiting Fashion Online: The Past, Present, and Future of Immersive Fashion Digital Experiences, I found the following key findings: from my secondary research:
- That not only the most common senses of touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing other senses such as movement, heat and cold and sensing pain are to be explored in the digital world to.
- Being an active part of the digital sphere rather than just a spectator is one of the most useful qualities of a smart phone.
- Gamification has become an element that feeds into this as a active participant and creating an experience.
- The future of fashion looks to be heading in the direction of accessible digital experiences for all.
After delving deeper I have come up with a design idea that will tackle the key problems based off both primary and secondary research and findings of authenticity, movement, more exposure and clarity of brands ethics on Instagram.
I will prototype a Live rolling news feed that features news/links to topics of the users choice in Fashion and Beauty, Sport, Music, Food and General News.
A prototype can be found under the Final Design drop down menu at the top of the website.
