UX Design Responsible for VR Customization platform Miid.io

Hired as CBO, I was responsible for the brand's image, experience, and promise. User Experience Design had a fundamental role in the development of the brand

Overview

Miid is a start-up born in Guangzhou, China, offering an e-commerce platform where users can customize many different objects using real-time 3D technology and VR environments

Problem

In 2015, users have moved from a stage of communicating with the brand about its products to a stage of demanding specific products built on demand. NikeID, New Balance or MiAdidas produce clothing with specific colors and embroidery for each user, spending up to 4 weeks. However, people are demanding a faster delivery and a wider range of articles. The Customization Era is a reality, but it`s not as comfortable as we imagined.

Figure 1. Motion graphics about acquiring unique products.

So, at the end of 2015, I was hired to give shape to an idea focused on offers from a new platform where Chinese users could customize and buy a lot of brand products and the provider would build them and deliver within days.

Research & Analysis

User research focuses on understanding Chinese market behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, personal interviews, and a detailed study of companies offering customization of a single product, in order to extrapolate it to a multi-brand environment.

User scenarios

Due to the fact that customization options grew quickly, there was plenty of data available to us. We used this to accurately define their user base, the way these users behaved and several possible use cases for the app.

Competitor Test in our studio Test in a Shop Test in a shop with VR

Competitor customization helped to study the client's attitude in front of a lot of options to create your own product from scratch.


Many people came with the idea of having a concrete design with their preferences. Others simply explored in a spontaneous way, while others were stuck when they found that they had a lot of options in front of them, even when they previously said they would like to have a unique article.

It implies a visit to our studio where designers would prepare everything to let the user customize hundreds of products. In this scenario, the user is planning to buy in advance and is picking his favourites articles of the total.


User is happy to spend some time creating, because he assumes it takes time (and maybe because he will get some gifts for free), but the experience overall is so creative. We don't see any clients who feel stuck and cannot create at least one new customized product by himself.

Users who want to buy a customized product will be tracked at the shop. It's a must to identify those who customize and are interested in keeping the design. Those who customize and buy the final product and those who customize and don't want to buy, deciding don't want to keep the unique result.


There is no time limit to letting them interact with the interface.

In this scenario, the user is testing a new way of shopping using Virtual Reality with HTC Vibe. The all-new interface requires a bit of time to adapt to the glasses and physical space around. After 5 minutes, the user is totally immersed in an exciting world of parallel reality where buying will be exciting and easy.


Desire of other clients comes around in seconds.


Figure 2. Miid’s user scenarios.
Personas

With common scenarios in place, we were able to define detailed personas using their vast data pool. The personas looked something like this:

Person #1 Person #2 Person #3
Name & Job Yao Rang, Design Student Li Wang, Accountant Joe Yuen, Shop Owner
Age group 18-24 y.o. 25-34 y.o. 35-44 y.o.
Motivation and benefits of product usage

Fast and modern way to design and create unique articles. No need to wait for new collections because it takes longer to deliver.

Simple way of creating special products. The ability to order gifts with a personal touch.

Create new promotions and shocking adverts with products adapted to each target and 360 view of articles to show potential clients.

Need and context of use

All day connected person. Shopping online meets this customization as a logical evolution for him.

A comfortable web to create his own product with no hurry, navigate to the options, and buy the special gift.

A person devoted to trends and ready to adopt the customization as one of his most powerful selling weapons.

Way to product

Recommended by friends. Online promotion and corners at the shops.

Recommended by friends and privates clubs. Promotion or partnership way.

Recommended by brands, distributors and promotions to sellers.

Digital literacy

High

Middle

High

Figure 3. Miid’s personas.

Without a clear understanding of how easy customization of products can be, the demand is not as big. Our goal was to make sure Miid’s platform showcased how great it was to have your own unique product, how real the experience could be, and how easily it can be done.

User testing

User testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. So we decided to use this technique for our site with these tasks:

  1. Log in or Sign up;
  2. Discover customizable articles;
  3. Design your unique product;
  4. Create a new collection of items;
  5. Get discounts when you share.
Figure 5. User testing results (before & after shops exhibitions).

Design

One major challenge in the project was to focus on personalization. Our aim was to improve user engagement by understanding more about a user’s personal preferences, allowing us to predict and tailor relevant products for everyone's design preferences.

Figure 6. Miid platform screenshots.

Promotion

With the proper planning, Miid.io would offer VR Customization for many products and services. New features of the platform were shown in this video to exemplify the first impressions and experiences with the VR environment.

Figure 4. Promotional video about VR Customization.

Results

As a results we created a web platform that is able to perform the business tasks. UI testing gave us an idea of how to properly organize the structure of the customization environments, providing the most positive user experience for Miid's users.

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told “make it look good”. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. Steve Jobs, US computer engineer & industrialist.

The company's founders are exploring the clothing industry to improve customization service on the spot, via VR technologies. Design, User Experience and technology allowed the project to go to another level for customization in Asia

Date December, 2016
Type Mobile apps, Prototyping design
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Contact

Are you working on something great? I would love to help make it happen! Drop me a message and start your project right now! Just do it. I will not spam you with
e-mail or add to MailChimp list.

Email hola@iamperi.com

Find me in Madrid, Spain

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