MenuSifu Insight
MenuSifu Insight
MenuSifu Insight
TravaLight
A clothing rental and delivery service helping travelers travel light under all kinds of unexpected situations.
UI Designer
UX Designer
Team
Designer (Me)
Platform
App
Duration
6 months
01 BACKGROUND STORY
I love travel
This project was my thesis for my Masters degree back in 2018. As an international student, I travel a lot, and that's the reason I choose this topic. I knew there were tons of services targeting this specific topic. However, I believe as the time passes, travelers' behavior and mind sets will change, so there is a lot of room to explore.
02 RESEARCH
What bothers you when you go on a trip?
I surveyed a 100 travelers and got 52 valid responses.
Pain points
Carrying and managing clothes for a trip is an issue that bothers travelers a lot but has not been resolved
-
Carrying luggage
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Can't find the clothes for tropical countries
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Don’t like to carry clothes after wearing them
-
Packing, figuring out the outfits for the trip took a lot of time
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Running out of clean clothes during the trip
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Clothes get wrinkled in the suitcase
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Don’t have the right clothes for a new plan during the trip
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Clothes take up too much space
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Forgetting things
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Want to be stylish for the trip
03 IDEATION
What if I make a clothes rental and delivery service for travelers to travel light and adapt to changes?
03 IDEATION
Clothes Sharing?
The idea connects to a interesting topic - clothes sharing. There are car sharing (Uber) and house sharing (Airbnb) services, but when it comes to clothes, people usually have more concerns.
My Assumption
People will be more open to a clothes rental (sharing) service while they are traveling.
01.
Case studies
There are some clothes rental services such as Rent the Runway, Stitch Fix...etc.
RTR is a successful clothing rental service. In this case, the service targets on people who don't want to spent a lot of money but need a formal dress once a while. This means if the motivation and incentive is bigger than the concerns, people will be more open to take risks.
02.
Interview & Survey
I asked a very general question about what the interviewees thought about clothing rental. Then I added a scenario to the question, and found out the outcomes dramatically changed.
How do you feel about clothes rental (sharing)?
How do you feel about clothes rental while traveling?
03 IDEATION
What kind of travelers would need this service?
There are many different types of travelers. I categorized the travelers into 9 different types, and interviewed over 20 of them to find my target audience.
Take aways
I thought "backpacker" was not my target because they just needed a few T-shirts for the trip and don’t mind carrying heavy luggage. However, they mentioned sometimes they stop in the city and want to get a great meal or enjoy a show, but don’t have appropriate outfits. This service suddenly became valuable for them.
03 IDEATION
What is it like?
Idea A
A centralized platform for travelers to rent the clothes from, and the service takes care of the delivery and cleaning.
Idea B
Collaborate with clothing brands in all the big cities, and travelers can go try on and pick up. Or have the brands deliver to the travel destination (hotels).
Idea C
As a third party platform, connect the locals and travelers to rent the clothes out.
Decision making criteria
I listed out the key points of both the user side and the development side and put down the scores to help me choose the best ideas.
03 IDEATION
User journey
Based on idea A above, I created the user journey table to see what the flow looks like and what concerns users might have.
03 TESTING
Test the idea
01.
My personas
I found two travelers that were coming to New York and willing to participate in my test.
Svend M. Holst (Denmark)
Age
Profession
Type
Size
Date
Stay
27 years old
Student / Actor / Sports club manager
Sampler (traveler type)
Top: M (L for slim), Pants: 32 / 32
10/15-10/18, 4 days
Air BnB
Fellon Chen (Taiwan)
Age
Profession
Type
Size
Date
Stay
27 years old
Flight attendant
Flight attendant(traveler type)
Top: S, Pants: 36 / M
10/16-10/18, 3 days
Hotel
02.
Run a business model prototype test
I made a mock up of the clothes list and had the participants actually experience the whole process
Pick the clothes before going on the trip
Mockup my prototype to run the business test
Svend: 2 sweaters, 2 pants, 1 shirt, 1 belt
Chen: 1 coat, 1 pants, 1 dress, 2 tops
Packed the clothes, delivered to them
Recycled the clothes and had interviews with the participants
Interviews
03.
Take away from the testing
There are few helpful insights I got from the participants
Insight 1
" It felt like online clothes shopping at first when I picked the items before the trip, that might stop me there."
Focus on travel when designing the app, don't fall into online shopping design flow
Insight 2
" I might use the service for a few specific days or tasks, but not for the whole trip."
Don't emphasize travel with no suitcases. There are different ways to use the service.
Insight 3
" This can be a whole day fitting room experience, I can decide if I like the clothing that I wore for whole day or not, and decide if I want to bring it home. "
Design features that allow users to pay and take the rented clothes home.
Insight 4
" I usually go shopping a lot when I am traveling, but run out of space after that. The service can help me save the space in my suitcase. It will be also helpful if I can just pay a bit more and keep the clothes I am wearing so that I can save some shopping time."
This is another great example of 2. 3.
04 DESIGN PROCESS
From paper to screen
2 versions of paper prototype and testing, 3 versions of digital interactive prototypes
Flowchart for the app
Conducting the research and analyzing results, this are the key design points...
Before the trip
Focus on the travel experience, don't design a clothes shopping app. Think of packing, pricing...
During the trip
Emphasize the emergency delivery, have the user feel secure and that we are always by their side.
End of the trip
Design a feature that allows user to take the clothes home.
04 DESIGN PROCESS
What are the design details and iterations?
01.
Before the trip
Focusing on travel concept.
Landing Page
Visual focus
The colors were inspired by the sunset and the ocean to represent "travel feeling". Then I reduced the saturation and increased the lightness to create my hero image on the landing page.
Primary colors
The primary colors are the extension from my visual focus. I increased the saturation to catch attention. They are mostly used for the action buttons.
Terms iteration
Based on the feedback. I made the start button terms more interactive and actionable.
# 1F4078
# FB9701
Create a trip !
Start with creating a trip!
Based on the research and testing results, my design started with asking the user to creating a trip instead of showing them the clothing options like a shopping site. Also, there is a reminder of the weather for the user to refer to when picking up the items.
My Airsuitcase
How to pack?
Previously, I used a design flow that had users assign clothes to the specific date ahead. I thought it will be easier for the service to manage the resources and delivery.
However, it didn't fulfill user expectations.
Steve (Interviewee, sampler)
" That is not how I pack, I don’t really know which clothes I will wear for the each specific day at this stage "
The air suitcase
Therefore, I came up with the idea of the air suitcase. By visualizing and synchronizing the packing process with a virtual suitcase, users can easily pick up the idea and follow the flow.
Pick Clothes
Categorize by activities
Continuing the concept of traveling and differentiating from the online shopping experience, I categorized the items by activities. Instead of thinking about the clothes and styles, I wanted our users to start with the activities they are going to do during the trip.
Casual
Business
Night Life
Weather
Beach
Active
Formal
Space unit
I used space as the price unit instead of putting individual pricing on the items. This way, the users could easily understand the concept and it created an immersive packing experience.
Check Out
Reminders
Based on the content, the system will send reminders to users before check out.
02.
During the trip
Have the user feel secure and that we are always by their side
Notifications
Notification and logs
To assure the users, we provide a notification on the shipping status and any upcoming trip updates. There is an audit log feature to track this as well.
Wardrobe Emergency
Emergency Delivery
As the research showed, unexpected weather or plan changes tend to bother travelers. In response to this, I designed the feature - "wardrobe emergency" to quickly deliver clothes or accessories to help them adapt to occasions.
03.
End of the trip
Have the user feel secure and that we are always by their side
Travel Light Back
Leave or take
Our users can always take the rental clothes home after trying it out during the trip. The app will ask users if they are taking the items with them for a discounted price at the end of trip.
" This can be a whole day fitting room experience, I can decide if I like the clothing that I wore for whole day or not, and decide if I want to bring it home. "
-Svend, Traveler
Tell Us More
Improvements over time
The fitting experience is always the difficult part of a clothes related service. I designed this survey for users after the trip, which can help us understand the users' body type and shape so we can provide a better suggestion in the future.
05 Launch product
Further steps and supportive resources
Talking about launching the idea in real life, there are few back end supports that have to be thought through especially when there is no investment at this early stage.
Clothes resources
Delivery Services
Cleaning & Storage
01.
Collaborate with the sustainable clothing brands
Ideally, I hope to get our own clothes collections and storage, but at this early stage, in order to provide the various options for our users, we can collaborate with brands like Madewell, Everlane...etc. Our platform could provide exposure for the brands or an off-season clearance channel.
02.
If they can deliver food, they can deliver clothes
In the big cities like New York, we see many food delivery services such as UberEats, Doordash..etc. The business model is there, we can use them to deliver the clothes if possible in this early stage.
03.
Be a regular customer for the laundromats
Well-established services like Rent The Runway have their own laundry factories and storage in order to control the costs and quality. At this early stage, we can be a client of laundry services all over the city, and have them professionally clean the clothes and provide temporary storage for us.
06 Scenario
Let's see the story
Ben is so tired of packing and carrying clothes
Luckily, He found the service where he can rent his clothes ahead of time.
At the end of the trip, Ben leaves the clothes in the room and travels light back home.
Ben is so tired of packing and carrying clothes