Verdant — Aditi Sethi

Verdant — Hiring Assignment @ Virgio

VISUAL DESIGN FOR MOBILE · PRODUCT CONCEPT

OVERVIEW

As part of the hiring process at Virgio, I was tasked with creating a product concept for a brand that promotes sustainable fashion. The deliverables were 3 final screens showcasing clear product reasoning and a strong visual identity.

TIMEFRAME

3 days to deliver. Jun 2023.

ROLE

Visual/Interaction Designer and User Researcher.

TEAM

Independent designer — standard hiring assignment format.

SKILLS

Visual design, brand identity creation, gamification, UXR.

OUTCOME

I received an opportunity to be a Product Design Intern at Virgio because of my designs and process.

A LOOK AT THE FINAL DESIGNS

THE BRIEF

Create three screens for a hypothetical conscious fashion mobile app. The screens should include: a Home Page, a Product Detail Page and a Product List Page. The target audience for this website is young adults aged 22-28 years.

The turnaround period for the assignment was three days, and I was told to focus on creating a strong visual identity for the product, and spend less time on user research and user experience, as we had discussed this in depth during previous rounds.

DELIVERABLES

(1) Clean structure: “structure these pages and incorporate design elements that appeal to this demographic.”

(2) Low-fid frames: “showcase low-fidelity wireframes that detail the main sections and functionalities of each page.”

(3) High-fid frames: “high-fidelity designs that bring the ideas to life with color, typography, images, and other visual elements.”

(4) Important point to note: “we're not looking for extensive user research for this exercise, as we've already gathered a fair idea about your proficiency in that area from your previous projects. Please focus on the visual and fashion-focused take on the design.”

MY PROCESS

EMPATHISE: COMPETITOR STUDY

To understand the pain points and empathise with the userbase better, I did a quick competitor analysis and some secondary research. I looked at products that are used commonly by people in the demographic.

I noted down the commonalities in their shopping experience. This helped inform the design of my product.

(1) Easy accessibility to categories of clothing.

(2) ‘Bestsellers’ or ‘newly in’ section front and centre.

(3) Colourful, playful images, showcasing light colours.

(4) Clearly visible components stating value for money.

(5) Easy accessibility to sorting/filter options in the listing page.

(6) Minimal layout in the product detail page.

EMPATHISE: SECONDARY RESEARCH

I did secondary research to brainstorm ways to incorporate the ‘sustainability’ aspect of the product, and to narrow in on what branding would work best given the context.

Since gamification is known to increase engagement, I decided to use it to motivate users to pay attention to their fashion choices in terms of sustainability. I decided to introduce the concept of ‘points’ that increase when you purchase a environmentally conscious piece of clothing, and that can be traded for incentives in the app.

DEFINE: USER PERSONA

I created a user persona to help me define the visual identity of the app and the key features.

This is Jahnavi Arora.

Demographic: Jahnavi is a 24 year old marketing associate in JP Morgan Chase and Co. in Bengaluru.

Goals: Jahnavi has a busy social life, and likes to shop for new clothes every few months. She likes to express herself through her fashion, and cares about it deeply.

Motivations: She wants to get the best value for money from her purchases, and knowing that they are sustainable adds on to her satisfaction in a shopping experience.

Frustrations: She finds that shopping sustainably is often unaffordable, and deprioritises it because of this.

IDEATE: USER FLOW

With all this information in mind, I created a user flow.