Impression, a customized T-shirt design and printing website

Project Overview:

An impression is a t-shirt designing and printing website for individuals and corporates. It allows users to design their print for a t-shirt with its easy-to-use design tool. Its primary focus is corporates and businesses. Individuals will also enjoy wearing their designs and want to experiment with their clothes.

My role and responsibilities:

I was responsible for designing an Impression website from conception to delivery with the tasks like Ux research, Empathize, Ideation, Usability studies, Wireframing, design of high fidelity, Prototyping, and accountability for accessibility.

Problem statement:

T-shirt printing is a creative thing. It is mainly done by non-designers when it comes to ordering for businesses and corporates. They usually find difficulty in using design tools to make designs. Even they struggle with placing a design file provided by the designer on a t-shirt.

The Goal:

The primary goal is to simplify the design tool and design process at each step and for all kinds of users.

The Process

Lean Ux

Following intuitions and putting your ideas out there is in the heart of the Lean UX framework. This process seeks collaboration and incorporating feedback. It also allows us to stay open to constant feedback and revisions. This framework helps to reduce the waste of time and resources.

Empathize and Define

Karthik Age: 30 Years; Education: B. Design; Hometown: Bengaluru; Family: Wife, Daughter; Occupation: Product Designer; Quote: "Your clothes reveal who and what are you? I want to be good with them. My clothes represent my personality and profession.''; Goals: Want his designs on T-shirts. Want some polished tools for customization.; Frustrations: Tools are not easy to use and laking of smoothness. Size variations with the site. Color variation. Unclear material type. ; Background: Karthik is a product designer in an MNC. He is a design enthusiast and loves to wear cozy printed t-shirts. He often designs and makes orders for customized t-shirts. He finds difficulty with the design tool's functionality. He also finds some trouble with the material, size, and color. As a creative person, he loves to experiment with his looks and clothes.

Karthik Goal: He wants to customize a T-shirt and print it in a very efficient and easy way. Searches online -Tasks: A. Wants to buy some new clothes. B. Search online for his choices. C. Do not find anything interesting online. ; Feeling Adjectives: Excited - with the thought of shopping. Hunts for customized T-shirt print - Tasks: A. Finds a site that can customize t-shirt print as his need. B. Feel to do some experiments with a print of t-shirt. C. Check out various sites for customization T-shirt printing. ; Feeling Adjectives: Happy - while gets options to make his own designed t-shirt. ; Possible improvements: Can show how to design your t-shirt and how we proceed further. Save design and order - Tasks: A. Make a selection of basic things like size, material, etc. B. Starts designing the t-shirt. C. Finds out he can upload his design directly. ; Feeling adjectives: Disappointed - with the design of design tools. An Annoyed - while feels can not edit the design as per his need.; Possible improvements: Can improve placements and options of the design tool. Save design - Tasks: A. Finishes designing. B. Save and submit his design. C. Review designed t-shirt to print. ; Feeling adjectives: Anxious- When he finds out the design review is different than what he had designed. ; Possible improvements: Can improve more with the design made and displayed. Can make customers review all details about their design. Places and Receives order - Tasks: A. Adds Address details and makes payment. B. Selects shipping method and confirms the order. C. Receive his printed t-shirt with his design on it. ; Feeling adjectives: Happy - while receives his t-shirt. Disappointed - while finds color shades are different than what he had designed. ; Possible improvements: Can improve color palette as per availability of printing options.

Problem Statement:

Kartik is a Product Designer in MNC who needs An easy designing tool to customize his t-shirt because he wants to make more creative and intuitive designs.

Hypothesis Statement:

If he can design his t-shirt easily with fewer efforts, then he can experiment with his clothes according to his style.

User Story

As a product designer and design enthusiast, I want to design my t-shirts to experiment with my clothing so that I can present my design and personality altogether.

Pain points

Ideation

Competitive Analysis:

The goal of the analysis was to compare user experience and features of competitor’s websites. It had analyzed with direct competitors like iLogo, yourPrint, inkmonk, Vistaprint. They all were direct competitors and had different business perspectives and a variety of items in their buckets.
The complete competitive analysis can be view here.
Click here to view the Competitive Audit.
Click here to view the Competitive Audit Report.

Crazy 8 Exercise:

Sitemap:

Wireframes Ideations

I had designed some ideations for the home screen on paper. Selected some elements from the ideations and finalized a design for the home screen and shop screen. Also, a responsive design for tablets and mobile has been shown below.
Click to check the low fidelity prototype.

Five paper wireframe ideation for home screen with star marked selections and final wireframe ideation.

Responsive Wireframes for Tablet and Mobile

Usability Study

A remote usability study was conducted in India to know the outcomes of the design tools placements and their use cases. As it is a primary section of the entire site, its functionality should affect much on the website.

Click here to view the usability study plan.

Derivatives from usability study:

Usability Note taking - A customized t-shirt designing and printing website

Affinity Map - A customized t-shirt designing and printing website

Insights

Before – After Screens from usability study:

Before-After screen from usability study, a customized t-shirt design and print website

Mockup Screens

Prototyping:

A prototype of high fidelity mockup with interactions can be view by the link below.

Click here to view the prototype.

Takeaways

During this project, I had realized that some functionalities and domains are not part of the routine use though, they also seek some attention from design perspectives.
The key challenge during this project is also the placement of tools in the confined area. It was necessary to give good options to make everything visible yet prioritized. To make sure that accessibility and grouping can’t be the problem for this section.
The need to be a well-organized and arranged design tool is necessary as it makes users’ work faster and smoother. It can also turn into good business for the company/organization.

Next Steps

1. Conduct usability studies to make sure that solutions address the pain points of users.

2. Try to simplify further the design tool.

3. Want to explore multiple address shipping in case of corporate orders.