Redesigning Myntra
Revamping a popular fashion e-commerce app in India.
Overview
During my UX Design Summer Internship at Monsoonfish Design Studio in Pune, India, I was assigned the task of independently redesigning an existing app of my choice.
Naturally, the challenge was to choose an app that was popular and considered to be amongst the best from designing perspective. Since I was fond of online shopping, I decided to redesign a famous Indian fashion e-commerce app - Myntra.
My Role
UX/ UI Design Intern
Tasks
User Research, Proto-Personas, Ideation, Wireframing, User Flows, High-Fidelity Visual Mockups, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Duration
2 months, May 2018 - June 2018
The Process
This was my first experience of designing by following the Agile Process. Until then I had followed the Waterfall methodology during the projects I undertook while pursuing my Masters degree.
Below is my journey map while following the agile design process for the first time.
User Research
While following the agile process I had to be mindful of the time that I spent on User Research. I had to complete the User Research within 1 day as the first design sprint was planned for 5 days.
My User Research comprised of:
Interviews
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I interviewed 10 participants of different age groups who used the Myntra app to understand their pain points during online shopping. These participants were based in Pune, India.
Contextual Enquiry
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I observed the participants while they interacted with different fashion e-commerce apps and performed different tasks through them.
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I asked them to think aloud about their "Aha"(happy) and "Oh no!"(frustration) moments.
Competitor Analysis
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I analyzed other fashion e-commerce competitors of Myntra e.g Shein, Limeroad and Koovs, to understand the key experiences they offered. I also evaluated their strengths and weaknesses
Insights and Points of Intervention
Initially, when I conducted the interviews, I focussed mostly on understanding the experiences and pain points of the users around online shopping along with the problems they faced while interacting with the app. I created Proto Personas based on research insights and reasonable assumptions.
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Some common problems that I discovered through my initial research were:
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Concerns around the outfit's correct fit - although a size and shape guide was available, some users were reluctant to go ahead with the purchase.
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Not able to get relevant recommendations.
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Not able to touch the garments/apparel, the tactile feedback was missing.
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Concerns regarding the return and refund policy of Myntra.
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Although this approach did help me understand some common problems faced by the users, it didn’t uncover some deeper level insights associated with the users' biases, emotions, and motivations. After discussing with my mentors, I thought of trying out another approach.
A Change in the Approach
I dedicated some more time conducting the interviews with the participants to understand their holistic shopping experience. During these interviews, I gathered further knowledge on how the users experienced shopping in brick-and-mortar shops as compared to their experience during online shopping. Based on this data, I created a storyboard to map out the brick-and-mortar shopping experiences and discussed it with the users to add nuanced experiences. To this end, I combined Clare Hooper's TAPT (Tearing Apart Piecing Together) technique along with storyboarding to deconstruct and analyze core experience elements of a brick-and-mortar shopping experience. TAPT and storyboarding, together with the Proto Personas, brought to the fore some key differences between both experiences. This helped me gain a deeper understanding of the issues around motivations, emotions, and aspirations of the users.
Key Insights
The Storyboarding+TAPT along with Proto Personas indeed offered me some enriching insights and provided me with a good starting point to begin my next step of Ideation. The decision to take a step back and understand a holistic shopping experience proved to be worthwhile (although I had to allocate time for this from the time period of 2 days reserved for the 'Insights and Ideation' Phase).
The key insights that I synthesized were:
Co-Experience
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Users usually liked shopping with their close ones, where they could them for their opinions and suggestions on different outfits. In essence, online shopping enabled solo shopping but not group shopping.
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Shopping was more of a spontaneous and casual outing activity.
Creation and Exploration
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Users preferred to explore and create their own customized looks with outfits and accessories from different brands.
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Some users just explored a specific category of apparel to complete their outfit set.
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Inspiration and Recognition
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Users were not just influenced by celebrities for fashion and style. They were also strongly inspired by their close ones, for example, friends, colleagues, relatives.
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Some users with a flair for fashion and style were requested by their close ones while shopping. The distinct fashion sense of these users formed a part of their identity.
Ideations
The above insights helped me identify possible points of intervention to enhance the user experience on Myntra. I used Mind Mapping and 'How might we' techniques to come up with ideas in diverse directions.
Iteration - 1
I discussed the above ideations with my mentor and the participants and finalized the top 2 ideas to undertake during the first design sprint. These ideas were:
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Creating your outfits on Myntra - Using this feature the user could customize their outfits. They could select an apparel from one brand, a pair of trousers from another brand, and add accessories to create a complete look. This empowered the users to create their own outfits instead of exploring the limited default options from Myntra.
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Shopping together on Myntra - This feature would allow the users to shop online in groups similar to the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. A group of people could join one shopping session at the same time and add clothes or outfits to each others' baskets while suggesting or giving opinions through Myntra's internal chat feature.
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I used the Crazy-8 technique to rapidly sketch different layouts for my ideas. I came up with the interface that most matched the user's needs. Below are some of the low-fidelity wireframes that I used for usability testing:
Usability Testing
On the last day of the design sprint, I began with the Usability Testing of the low-fidelity wireframes created for the two ideas mentioned above. Through low-fidelity wireframes, I demonstrated user flow for both the ideas - Create your looks, Shopping Together to 7 participants. I also asked them to mark the aspects they liked along with the aspects they disliked.
Following are the highlights of the feedback that I got from the Usability Testing:
7/7
Participants found the ideas interesting and useful.
5/7
Participants found many tabs on the home page confusing and cluttered.
5/7
Participants suggested creating new outfits on 3D human models, which would aid them in visualizing themselves in those outfits.
6/7
Participants found the user flow for the 'Shopping Together' feature complicated. It also raised concerns about privacy.
Further Iterations
In the upcoming weeks, I did four more iterations (one per design sprint). To be honest, I was quite exhausted during the initial iterations, as the agile process was completely new to me. I had to implement changes based on the user feedback for each iteration, ideate and come up with new iterations. As the iterations proceeded, I could see the design progress through increasing positive user feedback. Some of the wireframes and mid-fidelity prototypes that I tested during usability testing were:
Final Design
When I first started redesigning Myntra, I was quite skeptical about significant design problems, as the app is fairly mature in the Indian market. Eventually, through multiple iterations, I gained a deeper understanding of the needs and goals of the users.
I wanted to retain some of the core elements of brick and mortar shopping experience through my design to add a delightful factor to the app. I didn't want the users to just be the consumers of the app but also explore, be creative, and co-create in a fun way.
Since this was a redesigning project, I mostly followed the UI style guide of Myntra. Following were the three ideas that became a part of the final design:
Idea 1 - Creating your own outfits
Video - Creating your own outfits
The Create Outfit feature enabled users to create their own outfits on Myntra. They could explore various outfits created by other users and use them as inspirations. They could also customize the outfits as per their preferences.
Furthermore, an editable 3D human model (mannequin) aided users to visualize the outfit on them. These created outfits could then be saved or published to be made available for other users.
Idea 2 - Requesting other users to create outfits
Video - Requesting outfits
The Request Outfit feature enabled users to ask others to create outfits for them, which is a typical experience during brick-and-mortar shopping. Using this feature, the users having a good sense of fashion and style could gain further recognition and appreciation on Myntra whilst helping other people by creating outfits for them.
Idea 3 - Requesting feedback on apparel or outfits
Video - Requesting Feedback
By the time I finalized this idea, Myntra had already introduced this feature in their app. I redesigned some elements of this feature.
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The Request Feedback feature enables users to seek feedback from other people on particular apparel or outfit. People can give their feedbacks through emoticons and messages. A person can view all the feedbacks on particular apparel or outfit, which can assist them in making a better purchasing decision.
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Usability Testing on Final Design
At the end of the fifth design sprint, I conducted Usability Testing of the final design with 7 participants. I gave them tasks to create their outfits, request an outfit and ask for feedback.
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Following are the highlights of the feedback that I received from the Usability Testing:
6/7
Participants could successfully create their outfits, request an outfit and ask for feedback.
7/7
Participants found the app engaging.
5/7
Participants wanted additional options in the Edit Model section. For example, wider skin tones and broader size ranges.
In hindsight
Some of the key learnings for me from this project were:
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# Objectively viewing your ideas.
This happened with me during the first iteration when I ideated on a digital group shopping experience. I assumed it to be one of the best ideas even before conducting the usability testing. I invested disproportionate efforts in developing this concept and as a result, the other ideas were partially neglected. However, after the first usability testing, participants found the user-flow to be complicated and also raised concerns around privacy.
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# Getting accustomed to implementing multiple iterations.
In an agile process, certain UX deliverables need to be created during each design sprint. It's not always possible to invest substantial time in user research and then proceed with the development of concepts. A fail fast fail early approach is adopted in an agile process where initial concepts are created based on primary user research and then developed through continuous usability testing. Executing multiple iterations in each design sprint was one of the most challenging parts for me, as I had followed a linear design process in my previous projects.
Initially, tweaking the designs or completely change the ideas after usability testing was an uphill task for me. However, after almost every usability testing, I gleaned some interesting insights, which were adapted in further iterations. All these efforts paid off in the final design.
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One of the interesting insights was while developing the concept of Requesting Outfits.
Early Design Iterations
Finalized Design
During one of the usability testing, participants found the early design iterations for requesting outfits to be too professional and complicated. It contained many steps which could hinder the user from requesting outfits. Accordingly, I implemented the feedback in the final design by simplifying the process and bringing a fun factor to it.
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I would have perhaps missed such crucial insights had I followed the usual linear design process. Due to time constraints, I could conduct the usability testing with only 7 participants. Conducting usability testing with a considerable number of participants and measuring the impact can be taken up as the next step for this project.
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