Helping a small business implement a No-Contact Alteration services website.

Where did the customers go?

To find the answer to this question, I interviewed customers and potential customers.

Julie is a customer of Kim’s Clothing Alterations. She has been experiencing difficulty getting her clothes altered due to shelter-in-place orders. She needs a convenient and safe way to get her clothing fixed without booking an in-person appointment.

Kim is the owner of Kim’s Clothing Alterations. She has extensive experience with mending clothes. Her services have gone down 100% since the beginning of shelter-in-place orders. I wanted to get her insight and get a sense of her comfort level about any possible business model changes.

Organizing the Data

I interviewed Julie as well as a mix of potential users. This is the data I gathered and arranged into three different categories - habits, what they like & what they don’t like.

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Ease is Key

Through interviews, empathizing with the user and affinity mapping, I found that users want:

• A simple, easy website. 
• A smooth and secure checking out process. 
• An informational and helpful guide for the user to drop off their clothes. 

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Making the ideas real

With the website, I want to emphasize the main thing everyone wanted: Ease. After selecting “No-Contact Drop-In,” the user is taken to a page where they can select from an item of clothing and work through the site from there (i.e., t-shirt → service: hem → quantity: 2)

I conducted initial usability testing to validate the architecture and information of the website. These are results I found:

• Users preferred a button that says “Add to Cart” rather than an icon. This validates the study done by Nielson and Norman on the usability of icons and labels.
• Users preferred “Tips for Drop Off” on the last page as well as a confirmation email - for later reference.
• The Personal Information page overwhelmed the users at first glance. For the next iteration, I will be stacking the input fields vertically for easier reading & data entry.

All these preferences, I kept in mind while producing the mid-high fidelity prototype.

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Iterating...

The Personal Information page went through a number of iterations...

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I decided on the drop down options because based on the users feedback, I didn't want to overwhelm them with fields upon first glance. This way, they are able to tackle one section at a time.

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Making it Presentable

After finalizing with the client and user on ideal interface structures, I worked on a mid-high fidelity prototype. I will be presenting this prototype to the user for usability testing.

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Main challenge and lesson learned

This was the first time I worked on a project using UX design principles and Design Thinking. After gathering interview data, there were many routes to take to get to the main goal. The hard part was prioritizing what is important to the business, which was ultimately ease for the user. The easier the website is, the likelihood the user will opt for the No-Contact service option.   

Results and impact

Presenting a “No-Contact” option allowed the client to look at her business in a new light. Because of Covid-19 and Shelter-in-Place orders, many small businesses are losing money and ultimately, faith in their business. But there are new ways of conducting businesses and building revenue, and this was one way of thinking differently. 

Next steps

After usability testing and updating the prototype, I will present it to the client again and see if she would like to move forward with the design for her business.