As it becomes more important to live consciously, finding out which brands are actually sustainable is difficult. This is why many users are unsure and do not trust brands out of fear of greenwashing.
How might we design a platform that helps users buy more sustainably?
FairlyFab is a fashion platform that helps users find brands by clustering them based on a range of sustainable criteria.
We wanted to gain an understanding of the different challenges users face when trying to shop sustainably to improve their experience. Therefore, we broke down the prompt into concrete sub-problems, which we addressed by setting research goals.
With our research goals in mind, we created a short 10-question survey to gain greater insight into the issues users face when shopping sustainably.
A site map was created to identify where the content should sit and how the different pages relate. This builds a better understanding of our website's goals and purposes and represents the users' mental model so that they can find a brand that meets their sustainable criteria as effortlessly and quickly as possible.
Based on the research findings, a filter was created that allows the user to filter brands according to the six most important criteria: Fair trade, Eco-friendly, Organic, Upcycled/Recycled, Give back, and Vegan.
In addition, a brand score on the overall sustainability performance of a brand was developed (A, B or C). In combination with the partner ranking of Good on You (Planet, People, Animals) and our criteria, fairlyfab offers users even more cues to find out how sustainable a brand really is.
During this project, we learned that sustainable shopping and its classification is a complex undertaking. Our research showed that users want to be knowledgeable about sustainable fashion. Therefore, our MVP makes sustainable shopping straightforward, thanks to the subsequent breakdown into a brand score and additional sub-criteria. The next step is to validate whether our MVP meets users' needs and meaningfully improves their shopping experience.