PUREPLE

Pureple is an outfit planner app for organizing wardrobes, planning outfits, and exploring styles. Despite initially positive reviews and over 2 million downloads, recent updates have led to negative feedback and declining ratings, now averaging only 3.8-3.9 stars. This has caused significant issues within the app and its community. In this project, I was tasked to investigate the problem sources and propose a solution: a UI/IX rebrand.

Timeline: Jan - May 2023
Duration: 12 weeks
Tools: Figma
Role: User Research, UX Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing

About The Project

Throughout my coursework, I spent 3 weeks conducting research on Pureple, its competitors, and its users. Then, I spent 2 weeks brainstorming ideas, designing the wireframe and prototype, and conducting usability testing interviews.

Problem & Project Goals

As a first time user, I found 4 main problems about Pureple:

1

3

Interrupting pop-up ads and errors

Unclear and confusing languages

2

Lack of user control and freedom

4

Lack of community and support system

1) Redesign Pureple’s appearance for a more user-friendly aesthetic and easy navigation

2) Provide more accessible ways to support users

3) Create a bigger, more inclusive community

Design Process

Competitive & Heuristic Analysis

I analyzed Combyne, Smart Closet, Pinterest, and Instagram for their download rates, features, ratings, and costs. Then, I evaluated them based on six criteria: Browsing & Navigation, Community Flexibility, Shop Feature, Outfit Creation Flow, Personalization, and UI Design.

Based on the App Comparison and Competitors Analysis, Pureple contains the basic features of an outfit planner app, but its features do not perform at their very best. Combyne is the greatest competitor. The app offers a good variety of features that allow users to fully customize their personal preferences at no cost.

Additionally, Instagram and Pinterest serve as outfit planner apps with strong social/ community features. Users can easily find outfit inspirations from other users, but cannot create one on the app. Their navigation, UI design, and personalization are overall excellent and add great value to their user experience.

Finally, I evaluated the app based on Jakob Nielson’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, in which I discovered the main problems mentioned above.

Quantitative Research

I interviewed 4 college students with diverse backgrounds to gauge the app interest:

Amber

20 year old female
White
Homeschooled in Romania
Dress to express personality and style

Cherry

19 year old female
Southeast Asian
Grew up in Thailand
Busy schedule

Mihir

20 year old male
South Asian
Grew up in Nepal
Confident in his fashion style

Nick

20 year old male
Black
Grew up in the US
Dress to impress

Demand for Pureple depends on the user's lifestyle and involvement in fashion. Among the 4 interviewees, Nick is the most fashionable, and Mihir is the least. Nick usually finds his inspiration on Pinterest. He organizes his clothes based on colors, style, season, etc. He cares about the way he dresses, and his outfits determine his personality and feelings. On the other hand, Mihir's outfits are inspired by David Beckham, and he does not care if his outfit does not express who he is.

Three out of four interviewees agree that they create an outfit base, mix and match different clothing items to save time. Due to being college students, they have a busy lifestyle. Interviewees don't have time to include "outfit planning" in their morning routine. Additionally, college is not a place where people put effort into their going-to-class outfits. The only exceptions are special occasions such as Halloween, date parties, themed parties, etc.

Qualitative Research

I created a Google Form survey, asking college students about their relationship with clothings and outift planning process. There are 41 respondents.

95.1% of respondents has never used an outfit planner before.

75.6% of respondents would be willing to use an outfit planner app.

63.4% of respondents moderately cares or always cares about the way they dress in public.

Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok are the most popular places to find outfit inspirations.

"The app may not understand my style"

"I'm not that invested into my own fashion

"The clothes might not look good on me"

"The app may not generate the correct outfit for the weather/ occasion/ etc"

Interviewees and survey respondents's concern towards an outfit planning app

Persona

User Stories

As a busy college student with different priorities, I want to save time organizing my closet and coming up with an outfit quickly. I need an app that has an instant background remover tool, so that I don't waste time doing it myself.

As a student who goes to a small college town, it is hard to think of outfits that are blended in with everyone else, while maintaining my uniqueness while staying on a budget. I need an app that generates different outfits and up-to-date links on where to buy the items

As a busy college student, I don't have to reorganize my clothes. Plus, I don't have enough space in my dorm to have a "dream closet". I want an app that has good categorization and accuracy of my closet availability.

Customer Journey Map

Ideation

I started ideating by asking 3 How Might We question. Then I used the Crazy 8 brainstorming exercise to generate ideas.

How Might We...

Crazy 8 Exercise

1/4

Storyboarding

I selected my top 3 ideas from the Crazy 8 Exercise based on addressing the app's main issues. One idea involves reintroducing a previously removed feature. Feedback from interviews, surveys, personas, and reviews indicates users desire a personalized, convenient, and efficient app experience.

Idea 1

Auto-remove background tool, users don't have to manually remove the background by themselves about their clothing preferences

Idea 2

Outfit suggestions based on patterns and existing outfits of existing users. Users don’t have to log in to their outfits for days that are similar anymore

Idea 3

Personalize the app using quizzes. When finish creating an account, users have to answer questions about their clothing preferences

Idea 1

Auto-remove background tool, users don't have to manually remove the background by themselves about their clothing preferences

1/3

Wireframe + Prototype

Experience Prototype

Usability Testing

I asked my friends and classmates to participate in the usability testing process with two tasks:

1) Generate your first outfit
2) Add and edit your first clothing item

I observed their behavior and time to perform the tasks. When they finished, I asked them what they think and their feedbacks.

Pros:

Easy to understand
Aesthetic
Would actually use the app
Generated outfit in cute and wearable

Cons:

Questions are not inclusive and diverse
Lack of options for each question
Homepage is confusing and hard to navigate
Lack of clarification on question's option choices.
Image's background is not cleanly removed

Key Learnings

This project has provided the first exposure to user experience design. It covers user research, interaction design, and usability testing. I am confident in discovering a product's problem using the research steps above, as well as brainstorming and ideating. I also used Figma for the first time and was surprised at how powerful this program can be. My goal with Figma is to make Pureple as interactive and real as possible, and I successfully accomplished it.

On the other hand, I wish I had understood the importance of usability testing. I underlooked and did not spend enough time conducting usability testing, which resulted in a lack of details insights. In the future, I will plan ahead to avoid ambiguity in a project.