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Lode AR: Usability Testing & Research

An AR shopping experience for high-end fashion.

A UX Research project for alpha-launched iOS mobile application with TAILORU Collective.

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What's in Store

  • Project Overview

  • Discovery

  • Testing

  • Synthesis & Recommendations

  • Next Steps

Project Overview

What's the Issue?

People are stuck at home during the COVID outbreak, but still want to shop for clothing that makes them feel good.

People still want to shop for high-end and trending fashion, but they are unable to try on items from home.

How Can We Help?

Conduct a user profile workshop to understand potential users, then survey potential users to screen for usability testing.

Conduct competitive analysis of existing competitors in the fashion and Augmented Reality spaces.

<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/company-employees-use-web-search-find-ideas-doing-business-company_14245125.htm#query=research&position=10&from_view=search&track=sph">Image by jcomp</a> on Freepik

Conduct usability tests of the existing alpha-stage iOS mobile application with relevant users.

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Synthesize data and analyze features based on competitors and user pain points, behaviors, needs, and goals

Discovery

User Profile Workshop

To start, we wanted to understand the user profiles and the founder’s and the business's goals surrounding a potential solution to the problem space.

 

Essentially, we brainstormed who we are creating for and why.

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The workshop focused on 4 major questions about the target user:

1

What are the target user's demographics?

2

What technology does the target user use?

3

What is the target user's lifestyle like?

4

What motivates the target user?

From this workshop, we were also able to be introduced to our persona, Jasmine:

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Competitive Analysis

After getting an understanding of our primary user, and before conducting usability tests with relevant potential users of the Lode mobile application, we conducted competitive analysis of the application and similar products and services.

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We looked at 5 different competitors:

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From this research of reviewing existing features and functions across competitive products, we were able to uncover the most common features and use cases for the different and similar products and services in the AR and fashion realms.

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Click image below to enlarge.

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Testing

Usability Testing

In order to understand what our users personally need, we conducted usability tests with 5 users.  These users needed to fit the criteria of a potential and possible user, meaning users needed to:​

  • Have an iPhone.

  • Shop for clothing & accessories online at least a few times a week.

  • Spend more than $250 on clothes each month, and mainly on high-end fashion designers and lines like Gucci, Valentino, and Versace.

  • Have used AR several times.

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For the usability tests, we focused on 4 major flows:

Onboarding

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Trying on Products

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Navigating a Showroom

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Understanding
Lode Jargon

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LODE_ViewIRL.png

Synthesis & Recommendations

Usability Testing Synthesis and Report

We scored the usability for each task based on a color-coded and concern value system:​

  • High Concern

  • Medium Concern

  • Minor Concern

  • Success/No Concern

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Users overall enjoyed the application and its AR technology.
However, we found that all users had a difficult time with each of the tested flows.

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Onboarding

  • 20% of users successfully completed the app's onboarding.

  • 100% of users wished for the onboarding instructions to stay longer on their screens.

    • "I want to have time to read the instructions.” — User

​​

  • Score: High Concern

    • Users find themselves lost in the app and the rooms.

​​

  • Recommendation: Adjust onboarding and navigation guidance to align with user needs and expectations

    • Controllable onboarding

    • Hints and labels

    • Instructions for using AR​​

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Trying on Products

  • 80% of users successfully successfully tried on a product.

  • 60% of users expressed they had difficulty seeing the clothes on them up close.

  • 40% of users used the "Flip Camera" button, activating the back camera, to try on a product.

​​

  • Score: Minor Concern

    • Most users successfully completed the task.

    • Some users took different approaches to the try on view.

    • Users had difficulties seeing the try on up close.

    • Users who flipped cameras were pleased by accessing everything in one place.

​​

  • Recommendation: Allow user to try on item from a further distance, ie:​

    • Instructing them to back up to see a full view.​

    • Allowing them to back up to record a video or take a picture while the app counts down from 3, 5, or 10 to make sure to give the user enough time to back up.

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Navigating a Showroom

  • 100% of users successfully navigated the showroom selector., however they each experienced issues finding, approaching, and selecting products in the showrooms.​

    • 80% were confused when the showrooms didn't quickly appear.

    • 60% noted not having enough space to go through the virtual rooms.

  • 60% of users love the AR experience and the showrooms.

    • “I love the aesthetic of the rooms!” — User

​​

  • Score: High Concern

    • 60% of users expressed that they wished the AR was saved for trying on the products, and they didn't like walking around showrooms.

    • Users on average spent 12 minutes navigating rooms to find and select items.

​​

  • Recommendation: Adjust showrooms and tappable products to be more controllable.

    • Allow users to tap products from further away.

    • Have product info or CTAs appear sooner.

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Lode Jargon: My Closet

  • ​Constraint with My Closet: Not fully-functional yet.

 

  • 100% of users successfully items to their closet to save them for later.

  • 40% of users expected that adding items to the closet was the only way to try them on, which is not what the closet's purpose is.​

​​

  • Score: Minor Concern

    • Users already expected that saving products would be a part of the experience

    • Users expressed interest in a room of their saved items to visit to try on and compare items

​​

  • Recommendation: 

    • “Add” in the CTA may lead users to believe this is similar to “Add to Bag."​

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Lode Jargon: View IRL (In Real Life)

  • 40% of users successfully viewed a product IRL.

    • ​The user with first-try success spent 3 minutes to find a room, navigate room, and view a product IRL.​

  • 100% of users did not understand the AR elements appearing IRL.

​​

  • Score: Medium Concern

    • Messaging of “IRL” is not be clear to all audiences.

    • Most users were unable to open the view on their first try.

    • Users were not confident in their understanding of “View IRL.”

​​

  • Recommendation: 

    • Adjust or clarify messaging of “IRL” to be understandable by all audiences.​

Summary & Next Steps

One of our main focuses for this project was to help save the founders' and the startup company's money and time by focusing on what’s most important backed up by real evidence.

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Based on these findings from the user profile workshop, competitive research, and usability testing, the Lode team made a decision to address the top 25/25/25 issues to improve the overall user experience of the entire iOS application.

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