Identifit
Capture your identity in every fit
Identifit is a mobile application designed to help users organize their wardrobes and create intentional outfits that reflect their unique personal styles. Over the course of six months, I collaborated with a team through Design for America UW to develop a community driven solution that addressed the disconnect between self-expression and everyday closet use. We envisioned an outcome where users felt more confident in their style by making outfit creation easier, more intentional, and reflective.
RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY
To gain a better understanding of how users currently manage their wardrobes and express their personal styles, we conducted extensive rounds of user research with a variety of users from the 15 to 26 years old, over the course of 4 weeks.
Main questions to help guide the discovery process:
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Establishing a value proposition through market research
Wardrobe management apps have tech-savvy features and tools, but they lack usability and customer support.
COMPETITOR PLATFORMS
Strengths
Weaknesses
The Opportunity for Design and Iteration
From our research, we saw this as an opportunity to transform users' relationships with their existing wardrobes. Rather than adding more complexity to an already overwhelming space, we wanted to create a solution that brought clarity, helped build confidence, and breaks the cycle at its core - providing users a rediscovery tool and maximize what they already own before considering new purchases.
Making clothes visible, styling accessible, decisions simple, and purchases intentional
The design principles we wanted to deeply focus on included:
KEY RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Through our interviews and surveys, we identified four critical areas that impact how users manage their wardrobes and make daily styling decisions. These insights revealed significant pain points and opportunities for design intervention.
Research Highlights:
These findings guided our design strategy, revealing the need for a solution that reduces decision fatigue while helping users rediscover and maximize their existing wardrobe.
ITERATION
The Virtual Closet Experience
My Design Scope:
While the team addressed outfit planning and social features, I chose to focus on the foundational challenge: how might we give users complete personalization and control over organizing their existing items?
To solve the complexity challenge, I created a single decision point that branches into three clear user paths, then combines back to outfit creation. This structure provides users complete control over their wardrobe organization while keeping the core flow intuitive. Optional features branch off the main path, so users only engage with complexity when they choose to.
Interaction Design Deep Dive
To showcase in depth on the design process for these interaction flows, I've broken down the two most complex user journeys. These flows demonstrate user needs and feature complexity which provide balance to create an intuitive experience.
1. Outfit Generation & Board Saving Flow
While outfit generation represents the core value proposition of the digital closet, users also needed a seamless way to populate their wardrobe with new items. The upload flow required equally thoughtful design to ensure content creation felt intuitive rather than tedious, encouraging users to build comprehensive digital wardrobes that would make outfit generation more valuable over time.
2. Upload New Item Flow
While outfit generation represents the core value proposition of the digital closet, users also needed a seamless way to populate their wardrobe with new items. The upload flow required equally thoughtful design to ensure content creation felt intuitive rather than tedious, encouraging users to build comprehensive digital wardrobes that would make outfit generation more valuable over time.
Interface Exploration
How can I create a view for users to browse the items in their closet without losing the intuitive category organization they expect from their wardrobe?
Grid View
For the rough grid view sketch, I wanted this to prioritize browsing and visualizing the items in the user's closet with ease by leveraging users' familiarity with gallery patterns and adding strategic category organization. From the collection of user input in our research stage, this approach was designed to excel user's 'first glance' look into their closet to make connections between items without feeling the impact of clutter or decision fatigue.
List View
For list view, I was inspired by Cher's personal closet outfit generator from Clueless, where the change of visual scenery solves the category organization challenge through horizontal scrolling that moves categories out of the main content area, creating a cleaner interface. This approach better supports detailed filtering behaviors while maintaining easy access to organization tools because it allows users to see what cohesively goes together.
PROTOTYPING
Lo-Fi Prototyping
I developed two distinct approaches to the core browsing experience, exploring different ways users could navigate and organize their digital closet.
Design Validation & Direction
Through testing and validation with users and stakeholders, both versions revealed unique strengths that addressed different aspects of our core design challenge.
Version 1 Insights
Users responded positively to Version 1's clean navigation and feature design, hoping for more growth in filtering. There was some confusion surrounding the filtering labels on the list view and how I could improve it by not adding clutter surrounding important elements.
Version 2 Insights
User feedback provided was that Version 2 felt more like a shopping experience rather than a closet which is the opposite of what we were looking for. We wanted the user to not feel fatigued with their closet, allowing comfortability to see into their wardrobe. Users liked the dark mode and said it felt easier on their eyes in comparison to Version 1.
Combined Approach
Rather than choosing one direction, I opted for combining pieces of user feedback from both versions into one to create a cohesive user experience. A concern that came up was whether the user was going to feel discouraged from uploading their clothing items and it would defeat the purpose of using the virtual closet. For this, I carefully considered this feedbacking and came to the conclusion that although it would be a bit time consuming, it would still be a step into the right direction for getting users to think about decluttering their closets which was a goal we had originally set.
FINAL SOLUTION
Final Designs
Combining insights from both prototype versions, the final solution integrates Version 1's clean navigation with Version 2's dark mode contrast and enhanced filtering capabilities. This hybrid approach creates an intuitive foundation for wardrobe management that scales from simple browsing to advanced organization.
Browse & Organize Your Digital Closet
Clean navigation with intuitive category organization, featuring high-contrast dark mode that makes clothing items more prominent and easier to evaluate. Users can effortlessly browse their wardrobe while maintaining the organized, clutter-free experience they requested in testing.
Enhanced Filtering & Discovery
Robust filtering capabilities that address user feedback from Version 1 testing. Advanced search and categorization tools help users quickly find specific items or discover forgotten pieces in their wardrobe, reducing decision fatigue and improving outfit inspiration.
Streamlined Outfit Creation
Intuitive outfit generation that transforms wardrobe browsing into creative expression. The simplified interface guides users through outfit assembly while maintaining the flexibility to customize and iterate, making daily styling decisions feel effortless rather than overwhelming.
Seamless Item Addition
Streamlined upload process that encourages comprehensive wardrobe building without feeling tedious. Smart categorization and tagging systems make it easy to populate and maintain a digital closet that grows more valuable and useful over time.