Most of my working experience has been in the field of User Experience Design. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, UX design is defined as "the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function". A lot of the time, people make the assumption that this only applies to web and app design. But it is so much more than this. The heft of a credit card and the material of your sweatshirt all contribute to the overall user experience. I find this field exciting for this very reason.
How can someone develop a relationship to a brand, company, or product if it doesn't have an excellent user experience?
Like many people, I am very into fashion. I love to keep up with trends and come up with new combinations to strut my stuff in. I value fashion because it is a form of self-expression and simply makes me feel good. There's nothing more powerful than me in a killer outfit. In addition, I love how someone's garb can tell a story about the kind of person they are.
With social media being used more often to advertise clothing, I discover new brands every day. I see models and influencers showing off their recent purchases, and the referent social power of these people is difficult to resist. I want to dress to impress. Like most others who are into fashion, I love nothing more than a gorgeous piece at a low price. But in the past two years, I have discovered the term "fast fashion". Fast fashion describes the extremely profitable business model involving replicating catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, but mass producing them at a low cost. On the outside, this seems great, for it allows consumers to wear trendy clothing at affordable prices. However, there is quite the ugly side to this business model. Here's the anecdote that made sirens go off in my head: luxury fashion houses like Prada have 4 seasons of new items (think Fall, Spring, etc). Fast fashion brands tend to have 52 seasons of new items (each week in the year). Not only is the sheer number of seasons ridiculous, but these good are made with low-quality materials and off-shore manufacturing where labor is the cheapest. Not to mention the fact that the life-cycle of these pieces is typically very low, meaning consumers only wear these trendy items a couple times before throwing them away.
Where did I learn all of this you ask? I contribute my knowledge of fast fashion to two things: Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and Tiktok (two very different things, I know). One of the first Patriot Act episodes I was exposed to was all about the fast fashion industry. Hasan Minhaj gave me a great introduction into how terrible this industry is, and I wanted to find out more. The good news was, I didn't need to look very hard to find more information. Enter Tiktok. The more I began to use the app, the more content I was shown that correlated with my values and passions. At first I saw videos of people showing off their clothing hauls from Zara and other trendy places. I couldn't help but want to shop there because of how cute these garments were! But then came the videos regarding just how awful brands like Zara are. Micro-influencers began popping up on my feed with information on the harm of shopping fast fashion. These people seemed to share the same beliefs as me and fit the same type of consumer I was. My whole feed transformed into an age-based micro-culture of individuals who care about both the environment and self-expression through fashion. I started to think more critically about how I was spending money on clothing and began following the advice these influencers shared.
Helping brands exploit our planet's resources and people just doesn't sit right with me
Once I learned more about the dangers of fast fashion, the user experience designer in me got to thinking: how does fast fashion influence the user's experience?? I started by contemplating my own experience. I can think of many pieces that I got from these brands that just felt...bad. Or pieces that came wrapped in mounds of plastic packaging. First off, it doesn't feel good to wear something cheap. Second, it doesn't feel good to wear something 3 times and decide you don't like it anymore. Plus, after the immediate gratification of wearing something new from Zara wears off, you're left regretting purchasing a flimsy crop-top for $25. And now, knowing the kind of impact these brands are having on our environment makes me feel rotten to the core. Helping brands exploit our planet's resources and people just doesn't sit right with me. And I'm definitely not the only one. As a Gen Z consumer, I see posts on social media nearly everyday detailing the effect of humans on the planet. My generation is practicing collectivism, with many of my peers getting behind the green movement. Seeing my network sharing more that has to do with battling climate change motivates me to do anything I can to shrink my carbon footprint. I have observed that the core societal values of the younger generations, and even some of the older generations, are shifting to place protecting the environment as one of our top priorities.
The easiest step towards being an eco-conscious fashion fanatic is to buy and sell second-hand and donate used items. In my opinion, thrifting is an even better user experience compared to shopping at a retailer because it's more like a treasure hunt! One of my favorite pairs of pants was purchased through Depop. Every time I put them on I feel fantastic - not just because of how great they fit, but because I'm giving the garment a second "life". The next step is shopping at eco-conscious and ethical companies or asking yourself several questions before you buying. An environmentally friendly company can look like many different things, but one of the most important criteria I have begun to look at are the fabrics used. Fabrics like hemp, linen, or bamboo are much better for our planet than polyester or fleece, and information on the materials used is usually listed in the product description. While sustainable fabrics isn't the only mark of an ethical fashion brand, it is a start. And if a certain store seems to be failing the sustainability check, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I need to buy this new, or can I find something similar secondhand?
- Do I already have something similar in my closet?
- Do I have things in my closet I can wear it with?
- Will I wear this a lot or will I be done with it in a few weeks?
- Do I know anything about how it was made or the company that produced it?
And the final step, that I am aiming towards, is learning how to create your own garments! Sewing requires time, resources, and effort, but can be incredibly rewarding. I've seen people making stunning pieces that are both unique and sustainably sourced. My goal for the current school year is to learn how to make a killer pair of printed pants, and decrease my carbon footprint even more.
Now, when I see Tiktok videos of Zara hauls or an instagram ad for H&M, I immediately think about how harmful these brands are. While my relationship with these brands has become worse, I believe it is for the better. I'm starting to deeply consider my clothing purchases and how I will experience garments in the long-term. Plus, I have discovered some amazing brands like Girlfriend Collective and House of Sunny that make sustainability a main focus of their user experience. It's in their web and package design, advertising, and fabrics used (Girlfriend Collective even sells washing machine filters to prevent microfibers from entering oceans). I can only hope that more and more clothing brands will focus on how they can make their user experience as eco-friendly and ethical as possible.
Links: Article on Fashion and UX Design: https://uxdesign.cc/ux-fashion-2dff96a983a8
Citations:
Babin, B. J. (2018). Cb 8: consumer behavior. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning
Chentakul, Marisa. (2018, October 22). Why we should apply UX to fashion design - UX Collective. Retrieved November 5, 2020, from Medium website: https://uxdesign.cc/ux-fashion-2dff96a983a8
What Is Fast Fashion? (2020, May 9). Retrieved November 5, 2020, from Good On You website: https://goodonyou.eco/what-is-fast-fashion/
What is User Experience (UX) Design? (2020). Retrieved November 5, 2020, from The Interaction Design Foundation website: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design