Students have limited money, time, and resources for practicing sustainability in their fashion choices. By designing an app that allows students to buy, sell and swap their own clothes within the UCSD community, as well as discover which nearby stores use slow fashion practices, we can help mitigate the negative effects of fast fashion by making slow fashion more accessible.
Role — UX Researcher and UX/UI Designer
Time — 8 weeks
Team — Julian Baumann, Kayla Luong, Maria Morales-Osoria, Jumana Sarwar, Audrey Yeh
Background
Fast fashion describes low-priced but trendy clothing replications that are produced in high volume. It has detrimental effects on the quality and lifespan of clothing and is associated with sweatshop worker exploitation and environmental damage.
We wanted to discover how the sale of fast fashion is perpetuated throughout a college campus such as UC San Diego, and how we can create an effective product to help minimize its damage. We figured that a college campus such as UCSD is the perfect place to promote sustainability since all efforts can start on a smaller scale.
User Research
Through user research (experiences, interviews, field observations), we found that large contributions to the problem were:
- Young adults are primary consumers of fast fashion due to its affordable prices and instant gratification, leading to the perpetuation of an accelerated trend cycle
- While social media has accelerated awareness of the fast fashion problem, many are still unaware of the consequences of the industry or fail to translate their awareness into action.
- Slow fashion brands either aren’t able to have the same level of publicity or are conversely much higher in budget compared to fashion brands. Since many are brick-and-mortar stores, they also can be hard to get to for students without reliable transportation. Slow fashion lacks accessibility for college students.
These three findings brought us to the root of the problem.
Students have limited money, time, and resources for practicing sustainability in their fashion choices.
Problem
How might we promote sustainability in fashion within the UCSD community by increasing awareness of fast fashion and making slow fashion more accessible?
Solution
In consideration of this problem, we sought to create an app that provided the following:
Pragmatic Solutions
By bringing thrifting to campus, we can effectively lessen transportation & financial burdens. Our app allows students to purchase clothing from other students in the UCSD community & meet them on campus to pick up their purchase.
Epistemic Solutions
Since many students found it hard to find time and energy to research slow fashion stores, we providing informational resources on fashion sustainability through a map of nearby stores and their sustainability ratings. Our app helps students quickly and easily discover new sustainable shopping options .
Actionable Solutions
Buying clothes second hand allows for clothing that would normally end up in landfills to be used to its full potential. Our app gives students the opportunity to engage in fashion sustainability by shopping for second-hand clothing easily.
Community
As a bonus, users can make friends and explore campus in the process of shopping sustainably. Our app connects students by common clothing style and allows them to meet in person to do clothing swaps and purchases around campus.
From Lo-fi to Hi-fi
Iteration details coming soon…
Final Prototype
Click here to view our Figma Prototype.
Learning Outcomes
Reflection coming soon…
Thanks to Professor Taylor Scott and my teammates: Julian Baumann, Kayla Luong, Maria Morales-Osoria, Jumana Sarwar, and Audrey Yeh.
Nadia Corral 