Shein is an E-commerce app that creates fast-fashion clothing. In this project, I reimagined the app as eco-friendly by utilizing research to inform my design decisions.
Project Overview
The Problem
Fast fashion is an ever-growing issue due to environmental and ethical concerns. Apps and websites in the fast fashion e-commerce realm use the following techniques to attain their goals:
Flash Sales
Visual Clutter
Enticing Low Prices
Eco-friendly consumers fight against environmental and ethical issues by only buying products they need. An eco-friendly consumer is a lot more concerned about the quality of the item versus the quantity of items based on low prices.
The Goal
Lower Visual Clutter
Decreases Cognitive Load
Wishlist Features
Users Can Think About Purchasing Decisions Before Buying
Decreases the Amount of New Products Manufactured
I created a user flow to generate a pathway of processes the user can take.
These are the drafts of the main interfaces involved in the redesign.
This is my design system showcasing fonts, type sizes, and colors I decided to use.
Shein’s homepage is cluttered with sales influencing users to buy items as soon as possible. The redesign gives the user room to breathe decreasing cognitive load and appeals to eco-friendly users with sustainability commitments at the forefront.
The redesigned wishlist feature allows for less influence in buying more products which could lead to overconsumption.
Trading/reselling is not a feature included on Shein, so my redesign wanted to focus on the ability to have a user buy used products and communicate with the seller to appeal to eco-friendly consumers.
Here are my final screens detailing my design decisions.
Through this project, I was able to learn about the different design techniques used to influence consumer behavior.
Visual Clutter
The use of techniques like flash sales partnered with visual clutter makes the user feel as though they need to buy an item as soon as possible. With the lack of this, users can take their time browsing and find items that properly suit them catering more to eco-friendly users.
Change in Demographic
Through my research, I was able to discover that most users of fast fashion e-commerce platforms are low-income teens/young adults (ex: college students). Changing the use of visual clutter introduces the eco-friendly consumer audience who are most likely higher-income adults with more money to spend and not looking for trendy clothing pieces as soon as possible.
Combining Demographics
I am curious to see if there would be a way to combine the teen/young adult low-income consumer with the eco-friendly higher-income consumer. Environmental friendliness seems to be on the rise and highly advocated for by consumers and it would be interesting to see if the app can combine both to increase its user base.
