The EPA reports that Americans generate 16 million tons of textile waste a year, equaling just over six percent of total municipal waste. Much of this clothing waste is shipped overseas to be sold, and the rest piles up in landfills. Ironically, in 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty, approximately 3.3 million more than in 2019. Many Americans cannot afford nice clothing either resorting to shopping fast fashion stores for low quality items, or shopping at thrift stores. But shopping at thrift stores sill takes time and money, and most low-income families work during the store's operating hours.

With Archive, I wanted to design an app that would cut out the middle man of thrift stores and resale sites. I also wanted to remove the price tag, giving greater access to low-income households, and providing a service to those with excesses clothing who just need to have it taken out of their house. Archive is an app where communities can post clothing they are getting rid of, and where others can pickup the items to live a new life in their wardrobes. To ensure safety and allow for flexible pick up/drop off times, lockers would be installed in the neighborhood, either outside grocery stores like Amazon lockers, or on street corners like Free Libraries. Users would communicate on the app, set a pickup locker, create a locker code, and then pickup their item within a set number of days.

Project Duration

• November 2021-December 2021

My Role

• UX/UI Designer and Researcher from conception to delivery

• Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.

• Create an app for posting clothing items

• Have a news section where you can hear about community events

• Have messaging capabilities for users to generate locker codes and agree to pickup

With my three objectives in mind, I sought out similar services to Archive to review. I chose Goodwill because its is a large brand and thus should have the most compelling features. I also chose two similar user to user services as they would be most similar to Archive in terms of scale and what features were possible for a small business.

After completing this audit, I complied a report to analyze my findings.

Before I started a wireframe, I wanted to build the information architecture to make sure I didn't forget anything in the design. I had a challenge with the News page because I knew I wanted it to be the home screen but it was also one of the three main pages of the site along with Posts and Messages. I think the IA below captures what I was intending in terms of flow.

I begin the design with some quick ideation paper wireframes, and after deciding on a layout, created a digital wireframe in Adobe XD.

After a quick review of the IA in the wireframe I filled it out the connections in Adobe XD to create a functional prototype.

My users consisted of one male, two females, and one non-binary person. I set forth a few navigation tasks for them to complete, and then asked for their general thoughts on layout and possible features. I had them voice record their process, and then compiled responses into an affinity map below.

While there were a number of different suggestions from the testers, I focused on the top three that were most in common.

1. Users didn’t care for the News feed as the homepage, and would prefer to see the Posts first.

2. Users wanted more development on filters when looking at posts because they are normally looking for specific items.

3. Users asked for tags, comments, and sharing out of app features, because they want more customization options when making a post.

First, I went ahead and restructured the app design to take care of the three design changes my users wanted from the user testing session.

I'm very interested in fashion and sustainability, and think good quality clothing should be reused many times before being recycled into another product. I think this app takes the good elements from the Buy Nothing groups and Craigslist, and narrows the focus to one genre, clothing, to help reduce waste. The ability to message within the app is really helpful and not something I have seen another app or website do.

If I were able to create this app for real, then I would likely need to partner with a local community to do a test on locker systems, since that is a major element of the app. I would then conduct another usability study, and really focus on accessibility factors, as this is often a forgotten aspect in final products.