Boiler Room
UX Design ︲ UI Design ︲ UX Research
Mobile App
2019
About Boiler Room:
Boiler Room is an app that brings the best of style to your phone. It allows you to quickly and easily find the newest and coolest fashion items based in Manchester.
The Challenge:
The high-level goals were to:
- Create a fashion app that understand the needs, expectations and behaviours of the customers demographic rather than following a one size fits all approach.
- Utilises the devices features such as push notifications to communicate with customers.
- Use the app to build loyalty between the brand and customers.
My Role:
I led the Product Design - User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) - of this project. I also receive constructive feedback from fellow designers and the potential demographic in order to improve and get other perspectives about what I was designing.
Main Tasks:
- Customers insights & ideation
- Building the project vision
- Sketches
- User scenarios
- Wireframing
- Interactive prototype
- Developing the user Interface
Design Toolkit:
Design Process:
The first step of the design process involved user interviews and desk research to understand how competitors and users behave. I believe it’s important to get this information early on in the process, before having an idea or prototyping. By checking out the competitors, I could also see the different types of users their apps are trying to target, therefore helping me decide which users my app should be targeting.
After analysing these insights, I began to conceptualise the solution, focusing on user flows and wireframe to give me a way to iterate faster through ideas. From this, I went to the production mode, designing the interface considering design principles such as contrast, hierarchy and feedback; brand attributes; user interactions, and the imagistic universe presented as briefing by the case.
User Interviews:
User interviews are a core user experience method. That’s why I chose to approach 10 people to interview, taking into account the recommendation from Donald Norman’s article, “Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users,” noting that it is possible to learn about 80% of the errors, problems, and behaviour from the first 6 users. That would bring enough data and inputs to generate concepts and hypothesis. After the conceptualisation phase, however, I’d take the prototype out to test with other users in order to gather more feedbacks and validation.
Interviewed Audience:
The interview sample took into account subjects from a spectrum of ages and genders, located in the economically active population within the city of Manchester, England, and taking into account differing tastes in fashion. We chose Manchester due to it being close by to the Northern Quarter one of the most upcoming places for fashion in the UK.
The interview took approximately fifteen minutes and consisted of leading questions to get to the core of users' objectives from the app and to highlight their pain points. Therefore, I asked:
- How do you buy your clothes?
- What do you like the most from buying clothes online?
- What features would you like to see from fashion apps?
- What kinds of incentives would make you buy more online?
Once the interface was ready, I took feedback from four other fellow designers in order to understand the experience gaps. Validation, although part of my usual design process, would be a post-conceptualisationand interface step.
Customer Insights:
After analysing the interviews, despite the amount of generated data, this was the most relevant information for decision-making in creating the solution:
My target users have a higher demand for a mobile app when compared to a mobile website. According to the survey I designed, 85% of Amazon product browsing occurs in-app, and users want access to mobile apps in addition to mobile web and desktop. Creating an app is also important for connecting with younger audiences, which my app was designed for, with 61% of my surveyed audience downloading retail apps and 58% preferring to purchase via apps rather than mobile web.
According to the survey results, 73% of interviewed participants would prefer that I develop an app rather than a mobile website. This is due to the ability to add features like push notifications and in-app messaging. These features allow the user to stay up to date on new releases and discounts by displaying pop-ups on the home screen of a user's mobile phone whenever a relevant offer or product item that piques a customer's interest becomes available or goes on sale.
Desk Research:
In addition, I researched data and habits related to other current fashion apps. The goal was to understand how competitors behave and benchmark innovative fashion apps currently on the market.
Furthermore, while looking deeply into my competitors, I also read the article, “5 Retailers that are Winning the Game with their Fashion Apps” - published by the Launchmetrics Content Team, which brings relevant examples to the discussion such as Under Armour, Revolve, Lululemon and Nordstrom. The article also addressed the different techniques and tools utilised to deepen connections with consumers, foster brand loyalty, and drive sales. What I found interesting was the number of fitness brands on this list, and I later learnt that this was because of the way they utilise data, pulled from their own fitness apps, in order to create a deeply personalised shopping experience.
Market Insights:
Fashion apps account for the majority of app downloads (19.2%) in the shopping category, followed by coupon & promotions apps and retailer apps. However, the share of fashion app downloads decreased in 2022 (19.2%) compared to 2021 (23.8%), in favour of coupon and promotions apps - a sign of shifting consumer behaviours as a result of current inflation and the impending economic downturn.
The main insight found is that, for fashion apps, personalisation is a great way to ensure customers feel valued. When offered a personalised experience, an overwhelming 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase, and 88% report measurable improvements when experiences are personalised. This app personalization can be as simple as addressing the user by name and presenting them with content tailored to their previous activity.
There has been a transition to brick-and-mortar stores in recent years. 22% of online returns occur because the product ordered online looks different in person. This never-ending challenge is causing many fashion brands to return to traditional retail, as modern consumers prefer both online and offline sales channels. To demonstrate this point, 55% of consumers prefer to browse products online and compare them to what is available in local stores.
Concept:
To create an app that brings the best of fashion to your phone. The app should help you quickly and easily find the newest and coolest fashion items inspired by Manchester's Northern Quarter.
Wireframes:
The wireframes were created to build the structure and architecture of the information and only then go to visuals and interactions.
Home:
When a user opens our app, they will be presented with a diverse selection of product recommendations. I felt it was important to give other product types some spotlight even though it’s convenient to feature the most popular and profitable products. This also gives our users an overview of the entire site within the first few moments. Furthermore, we used eye-catching imagery on the homepage so that it can immediately catch the user’s attention as soon as they arrive on the app while also promoting the products we sell. We did this by using high-quality images as well as keeping the design as clean and simple as possible reducing the number of elements on the screen so we can focus on getting a user to buy one of our products and closing the sale.
Product Page:
Every item sold by Boiler Room has its own product page with all the information a customer could want such as images, measurements, specifications, price, and reviews. The exceptional detail we put into each product is what sets us apart from the competition. Stylists and reviewers have clearly and meticulously curated these details. They don't just explain what a product is made of and how it looks; they also explain what kind of sole and insole is in the shoe and how it feels to wear it. This was done to not only delight customers and encourage their trust, but also to make a more confident purchasing decision. We want to make sure that every user who buys our products are 100% confident that it will fit their own unique style.
Filters:
In order to help users, navigate the many options Boiler Room has, I designed filters that allow them to shorten the list of items so they can find the product they want as quickly as possible. To make life easier for our users, I decided to first analyse which of our filters are likely to be used the most. This way we could arrange them in a way that prioritises the most important ones for our customers. This will save them time and energy, forming a favourable image of our app in their minds. We did this especially for the collection and colour filters because there are numerous options for users to choose from whilst also ensuring that all users can clearly see the divisions of filter sections.
Payment:
For the payment page, we wanted to keep it as clean and simple as possible. We accomplished this by keeping payment information to a minimum. To purchase a product through our app, the user only needs to enter their card number, card expiration date, and card security code. We also enabled payments to be made via Apple and Google Pay, in addition to PayPal, to enhance the customer experience. By keeping payment information to a minimum, users will feel more confident in purchasing from us because there is only a limited amount of information about them if a data breach occurs.
Colours:
Due to the brand’s guidelines, we decided to pick a bright and inviting tone, so we chose white so that all the content on the page from images and text can be clear for the user. I also chose dark blue to break the white and make the brand youthful and remarkable and give the interface a more playful and vibrant look as well as contrasting well with illustrations.
For text, black was bought in to ensure reading and contrast, thus reaching appropriate levels of accessibility.
Typography:
Because the majority of our users will be between the ages of 18 and 30, and because design and aesthetic is important to them, as well as the app being designed to be youthful, we recognise that the typography could be used as an opportunity in the app interface while still keeping it clear and easy to read for users. As a result of its simplicity and design, I chose SF Pro to be used throughout the app to create consistency.
other Work
UniRoomy
UniRoomy
UniRoomy
