Imagining an Image Styling App
Opportunity
The mission of Style Finder is to build self-esteem in girls and young women by helping them to look their best and to develop their own unique sense of style. With easy access to image consulting services, girls and women can feel more excited and confident about purchasing new clothes and staying current.
The current options in the marketplace require the user to make her own size and style assessments, then match herself to a few stereotypes. Style Finder provides an objective assessment and refined matching capabilities, resulting in more realistic size and style profiles.
By hooking into the inventory of stores in the user’s local mall, Style Finder helps women find contemporary clothing which they can try on within the week.
User Goals and Needs
The users are female tweens, teens and young adults. Their key concerns are:
- “I want an easy way to find clothes that make me look good.”
- “I need help learning what’s in style and will look good on me.”
- “I’m not sure what I like and how to pick out clothes for myself.”
- “I want to see if my friends approve of my clothing choices before I buy them.”
Description and Services
The product is a station with several kiosks and one photo booth that will be placed in a mall/department stores. The system will be linked to a database of clothing that is sold in the mall/department store in which it is installed. The database will be updated regularly to reflect current store inventories. The product will provide two main services:
- Match: to help customers find the most flattering clothing and accessories for their coloring and body shape, based on matching their image to templates in the system.
- Style: to help customers find their personal aesthetic style, factoring in current trends.
Process and Sketches
I created the provisional persona and user scenario, then sketched concepts, flows and wireframes on paper. Iterations were made in Adobe Illustrator.
Concept sketches.
Interface flow.
User interface sketches.
Prototype
Walk through a rough prototype of the kiosk screens.
Vision of Success
These are the seeds for a powerful image styling app. If this product came to life, success would look like the following: people like Mia can shop online to find flattering styles in local stores, put them on hold, then visit the stores to try them on. When she purchases an item, she can share it with friends and family. She loves Style Finder because it helps her feel more empowered and confident in her outward presentation to the world.