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case study

SIDEWALK RUNWAY

THE TASK

MY ROLE

case study

timeframe: 2 weeks

Sidewalk Runway is a website to explore the problem that many people face when shopping online for clothing/accessories: you never really know how things will look on your body. Input your stats to find pictures posted of people with the same stats, look for specific clothing and filter by your stats, follow those with similar shapes and style in clothing!

THE PROBLEM

People do not typically know what an item they purchase online will look like on their body type, which causes anxiety over lack of fit, problems with returns, and a large group of people who just don't want to bother purchasing online.

  • Create a website that explores a problem/area of opportunity for an existing brand (we chose Zappos).

 

  • Working with only one other person, we also had to be very time-conscious.

 

  • Consider brand and API constraints.

  • As there were only two members on this team, my role was not in any one particular area but in the entire project.

  • Competitive and comparative analyses, surveys, interviews, KPIs, and business proposal.

  • Design studio as well as prototype design in Sketch, organizing pages, prototype in InVision.

  • Final presentation with deliverables.

  • Delight: The Look Book Blogger area with pop-up purchasing.

FINDING THE SOLUTION

After doing surveys and interviews and organizing all of the data, we found that some of the largest factors influencing shoppers' purchase decisions were customer reviews on the product page, official product images, recommendations from people, seeing the item on other people, and customer images on the product page.

 

Additionally, 60% of survey takers indicated that they have left a review for an item that they’ve purchased. This shows that the majority of consumers have a desire to share their experiences with fellow buyers.

 

With this information, the solution is to create a community of shoppers who are motivated to help one another by uploading images of their Zappos purchases with the ability to link to the item for purchase.

 

Key Performance Indicators

 

Users uploading pictures of products

Users commenting/website community participation

Repeat users

Users directs to Zappos website

Product purchases from Zappos

Return rates

PERSONAS

THE DESIGN

After figuring out which features we could implement and what APIs we could make use of with two full-stack developers, we began a design studio and ran tests on the homepage.  We wanted to make sure that Sidewalk Runway did not confuse the user into thinking that they were at an e-commerce website.  It took a few tries, but eventually we were able to come up with a layout and use copy that clarified the mission of the website.

 

We ran tests using a paper prototype before moving on to our higher fidelity final prototype which we ran several user tests and iterated where needed.

THE RESULT

Homepage

Ability to search by your measurements OR by product and filter.

Products Page w/ Popup

When you click on a customer image you get their stats as well as a link their profile, other customer images, a link to the official product, and comments on the photo.

Look Inspiration Page

Bloggers would be able to create looks using Zappos products and link to them.  All they would need to do is use the appropriate hashtag.  When hovering over the numbered arrows, the official item pops up, as well as customer shots, and a link to the official product page making for an easy look-copy experience.

THE PROTOTYPE

NEXT STEPS

FILTERS & SEARCH IMPROVEMENTS

 

Sidewalk Runway's goal is to help shoppers make purchase decisions by providing easy ways to search and filter images. The following additions are further improvements:

 

  • Filter bloggers and/or their models by size

  • Include additional sizes and body shapes

  • Ability to filter metric unit choice (cm, inches, etc.).

 

FEATURES

 

Add a ‘Suggested Items’ feature that helps to pair items depending on if they’ve been paired before/bought together (using member information as well as APIs)

Add a ‘Similar Items’ feature that allows users to find similar items to ones the are looking at/for that may cost less, as price was a big issue for almost all of the people that we surveyed

Show additional color options for the same item

Allow ‘following’ a brand in addition to users

 

FUTURE

 

Create a native iOS and Android application so that users can easily upload images using the camera on their devices. This would also allow for incorporation of a barcode scanner feature that allows in-person shoppers to scan items at a store to see all of the pictures associated with it.

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