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.
Gen Z users, especially college students navigating newfound independence, face challenges managing cluttered closets due to fast fashion consumption. On average, only 20% of their wardrobe is worn regularly, while the other 80% gets buried in forgotten clutter.
Closet clutter and social media trends directly contribute to impulse buying, revealing an opportunity to design solutions that promote mindful wardrobe engagement, reduce decision fatigue, and support this transitional and tech-savvy audience in building wardrobe habits rooted in intentionality and sustainability.
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:
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.
Establishing a value proposition through market research
Wardrobe management apps have tech-savvy features and tools, but they lack usability and customer support.
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.
The design principles we wanted to deeply focus on included:
Before solving the functional challenges, I needed to understand how the digital closet should feel. Drawing from our research insights about users craving confidence and clarity, I explored visual directions that would make interacting with their wardrobe feel empowering rather than overwhelming.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?"
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.
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.
I developed two distinct approaches to the core browsing experience, exploring different ways users could navigate and organize their digital closet. Each version addresses the fundamental challenge of making wardrobe management feel intuitive rather than overwhelming.
Through testing and validation with users and stakeholders, both versions revealed unique strengths that addressed different aspects of our core design challenge.
Users responded positively to Version 1's clean navigation and feature design, appreciating how the minimal interface reduced decision fatigue. However, feedback revealed that users wanted more robust filtering capabilities to better organize and discover items within their closets, indicating a need for enhanced functionality without compromising the clean aesthetic.
While Version 2 felt more like a shopping experience—which wasn't our primary focus—users were drawn to the dark mode interface. The high contrast between clothing items and the dark background made garments more visually prominent and easier to evaluate, creating better visual hierarchy for wardrobe browsing.
Rather than choosing one direction, I decided to combine the best elements from both versions. This hybrid approach took Version 1's clean, minimal foundation and strategically integrated Version 2's enhanced functionality as progressive disclosure features. The result was a solution that felt approachable to new users while scaling to meet the needs of engaged users - perfectly articulating our vision of making wardrobe management both simple and powerful.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Identifit project became a defining experience in collaborative design, user-centered thinking, and iterative problem-solving. Through six months of intensive research, design, and refinement, our team created a solution that resonated with both users and the design community.
Our team was honored to win first place for Best Overall Design at the Design for America UW competition. This recognition validated our user-centered approach and the months of iterative design work. The judges particularly noted our comprehensive research methodology, thoughtful problem-solving approach, and the cohesive integration between individual team contributions that created a unified, compelling solution.
Working on the virtual closet taught me the importance of balancing user feedback with design vision. The process of combining Version 1's clean aesthetic with Version 2's functional elements showed me how to synthesize competing priorities into cohesive solutions. I learned that the most impactful design decisions often come from user testing insights rather than initial assumptions, and that iteration is where good designs become great ones.
Collaborating with a multidisciplinary team deepened my understanding of how individual contributions strengthen collective outcomes. Each team member brought unique perspectives—from research methodology to social features to technical feasibility—that elevated the final solution beyond what any of us could have created alone. I learned to advocate for my design decisions while remaining open to feedback and alternative approaches.
With additional time, I would have conducted more extensive usability testing on the final hybrid solution to validate our design decisions with real user behavior. I'd also explore more advanced personalization features, such as AI-powered outfit suggestions based on user preferences and wearing patterns. Additionally, investigating accessibility considerations and conducting inclusivity research would ensure the virtual closet serves a broader range of users and use cases.
