ThriftFinder
Synopsis:
ThriftFinder is an app that strives to tackle the ever-present issue of fast fashion. I worked with a team of 3 other user experience designers to research the effect fast fashion has on the environment and why it persists as a challenging issue to solve to this day.
Research:
Through our research, we discovered that while buying secondhand clothes would significantly help the clothing industry's negative impact on the environment, many members of our target audience felt it was too hard to find quality clothing items during this process.
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Massive thrift stores offered lots of options but an unorganized experience while small business thrift stores had less to offer but a much more quality and hassle-free experience. Our target users also expressed a desire to shop sustainably and help the environment but felt they lacked awareness on how to determine whether an item was environmentally friendly and made from a quality, long-lasting material.
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Our team brainstormed over 70 unique solutions, in addition to sketches, storyboards, and more. What resulted was our solution, ThriftFinder!
Solution:
ThriftFinder helps users by making finding quality goods at thrift stores easy and helping the environment rewarding. Users can quickly browse through recommended items of their size and tastes and buy items from multiple different thrift stores with one easy process. The green score of each item directly tells users the quality and sustainability rating of the items they're interested in. Items from each store can be selected for delivery or in-store pickup to give them a hassle-free experience no matter their preferences. Since the app uses already existing thrift stores for its database, it does not charge users for their items until it is removed from the shelf and either shipped to or picked up by them. This feature also allows in-store pickup users to try on their items before purchasing which is a feature unavailable by current online thrift stores.
Users can also find thrift stores near them to donate old items to and even schedule their donations for contact-free pick up if they don't want to go in themselves. Finally, as a thank you for the user's sustainable choices the app offers coupon points for buying and shopping which can be used on coupons for more secondhand shopping or outside participating brands. By doing this, our app would not only attract current secondhand store shoppers, but also those less likely to shop sustainably, therefore, increasing the overall impact we can have in keeping more clothes from entering landfills.
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My Contribution:
I lead the research process which our designs were based upon. I also designed the layout and scope of ThriftFinder as well as how its features work. I worked with one of my team members on the final design concepts which I have tweaked slightly for this version. Most notably, I've changed the text used for the app's name, small color scheme changes as well as the layout of the information displayed on the home page. I also swapped out some pictures used for clothing images after some feedback from target users that using pictures of models with their faces in the pictures made the user think the pictures were more intended for social media purposes as opposed to advertising the items themselves.