Known for custom pocket tees, the client was ready to invest in tech to help cultivate an audience of creatives to compensate for a revenue stream that had just went under. What would follow was a mind blowing experience.

When I first arrived, the client brought a problem to my attention. The problem was that one of their biggest sources of income was no longer paying. The source of income was a third party eCommerce website where the majority of orders were taking place, and where the majority of their revenue came from.

The client leveraged customer email addresses, acquired from this third party eCommerce site, in attempt to try and direct them to purchase directly and at a lower cost on their own website. This business model was about to come to an end. Here’s how…

One day the third party eCommerce site stopped sharing the customer email and at the same time stopped paying the 40% cut in revenues, the client was promised. What was the client going to do now that their biggest source of revenue had gone into question? Read On To Find Out…

It was after several user testing interview sessions that I was starting to see a pattern in user behaviour and desire. What did they want and would it be feasible to achieve? Read on to find out!

After aggregating countless user journeys a trend started to appear. What was novel about the website was not eCommerce shopping as we know it, but it was the ability to customize the product.

Here’s a list of features they craved.

• upload my own fabric pattern and drag and drop it.

• upload my own image and print it.

• upload my own patch shape

• I want more fabric pattern options

User testimonials after interviewing: 

“What’s novel about your brand? If customizing clothing is what’s novel, that’s not obvious!”

“No, I’ve never heard of this brand… What’s it all about?”

It was apparent after several rounds of user testing that there was a disconnect in telling our brand story through the UI of the web app. Navigation was a huge distraction and it was absolutely necessary to distinguish what exactly the path forward was as they learn what the brand was about, and what was novel about the client.

In journalism they say, “threes a trend”, so I take this into account when I user test, because I can’t wait for the story to tell itself or it’ll be too late. That and I’d be user testing until the cows come home. 

After testing, a pattern started to emerge. They wanted to contribute to the platform with their own art to design their own clothes. Since, the client is best known for their fabric library collection and numerous pockets & patches to embellish clothing.  However, this system got out of hand. The number of patches were too numerous, and the fabric library collection had grown to over 1000 different fabrics, none of which people were to fond of. What people really wanted was to upload their own. Where their wants and desires align best with the client’s brand is providing the patch shape. Explaining this proposition to the target audience was going to be a challenge. How was I going to go about providing a solution? Read on to find out… 

In an attempt to explain to users with the unique selling proposition, changing their artwork was a non-starter. Easing users into transforming their artwork into fabric was a must. One baby step was to add support for screen printing user uploaded artwork. That created a choice between printing artwork or transforming it into a fabric patch. How’d this turn out? Read on to find out…

Eventually, printing and or cutting and sewing people’s artwork started to plateau. This was easily anticipated because user testing shed light on another product people desired. Uploading artwork inside the pocket, and dragging and dropping it to their taste. This would require a little more than simply adding more UI to the current user flow. Read on to find out how this panned out… 

Customers expressed zero interest in brand loyalty and had no idea who the brand even was, though they’d be wearing the product.

As mentioned, many of the orders for products were being placed on a third party website, and these people were simply buying products that had been customized by the client. 

In testing the gentleman pictured above, he was a customer that had purchased his shirt from the third party website. When it was brought to his attention that he was wearing the client’s product he had no idea how to connect the dots. 

 

There was a major brand deficit. It was time to come to terms with the client’s branding, and in order to do so I focused on telling their story.

Vectorizing artwork required a third party API to convert it from JPEG to SVG and an Embroider & Laser Cutting Machine to cut it out and sew it on the garment. Since crowdfunding was the only way to afford the Embroider & Laser Cutting Machine, Kickstarter was the platform we turned to. How did the Kickstarter Campaign go, you ask? Read on to find out…

As a UX designer I can not work alone. On the contrary, I work best with an integrated new product development team, an iNPD, if you will. For this project, I collaborated with the Chief Marketing Officer for the Kickstarter Campaign Marketing Collateral. Where as, for Web Development, I worked closely with the Software Engineer. An iNPD team is great because it allows for agile and lean projects to meet deadlines and constantly iterate. 

• countdown on homepage

• webinar hype up Facebook Group

• Email Campaign

It’s absolutely transformative to watch your print artwork turn into a fabric patch. 

Extendible Product That Can Be Multiplied Again and Again.