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EMMA
FUTURISTIC SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Project Brief
Emma is a conceptual exploration of how we can personalize shopping experiences in the future. Designing this product included heavy emphasis on viability of the concept, contextualize of technology and balancing it with natural human expectations.
My Role
Personas, Business Design and Product Design
Timeframe
5 Weeks.
Teammates
Dash, Pei Pei and Tracy
Process
The project was done as part of our Business of Design class to explore the opportunity of designing our own product. The process involved finding balance with the constraints of market viability, existing technology, natural human behavior and anticipated shopping experiences.
We relied heavily on available research on present retail patterns. Research also included conducting several interviews with users in retail outlets like Gap, H&M, Levi's and Old Navy. This helped us narrow down on a segment of users and nail down the product even more.
The actualization of our concepts included preparing mock-scenarios, physical prototypes with Real Sense cameras and studying personalized domestic appliances. We constantly went back to users to test our concepts and fine-tune our concepts.
Our team of four brainstorming various ideas at the initial stages.
Sketching out the experience map of the online shopping today.
Our product-wall with the financial docs, personas, experience maps and physical prototype(left to right).
Positioning our new idea in the present ecosystem of personalized shopping.
Key insights that came from our field-research with some of the Online Shopping.
Defining the form of our shopping companion. Say hi to EMMA!
One of our final persona.
Visual design on the companion app for EMMA.
The key value-proposition is the use of your existing clothing to understand you and better suggest new clothing.
Checking the viability of the product to make the ideal impact with our target users.
Designing our product also included planning strategically for growth.
Breaking even in less than three years of product sales.
Moda Mirror. The future of personalized shopping.
Project Impact
The project was done as part of the Business of design class taught by industry experts, Christopher Ireland, Elizabeth Glenewinkle and Maria Giudice. It was crutial to understand how we can as designers start a business of our own and run it successfully. Also, the project instilled in me the importance of business considerations in the design process.
Challenges
- To take up a financial head role without any prior experience.
- To be able to also be in a project management role alongside being a designer.
- Collaborate with others in the team to unify our energies in the direction of a product we are all excited about.
- Be confortable to change our initial idea to better align with changing information about the costs, user needs and technical constraints.
Takeaways
- The understanding of how designers can be impactful in emerging businesses.
- The power of video to visualise our idea of a futuristic concept in a believable manner.
- Technical constraints alongside with financial liability of design provide interesting constraints that shape that design process.
- Being able to present our idea in front of Venture Capitals from the silicon valley, Sharktank style, and successfully stand by our designed product.