Hilmi

Design Process

Define

Research

Design

Prototype

Test

Overview

Hilmi is committed to empowering smaller-scale fashion brands by streamlining their design processes, enabling them to compete effectively with industry leaders. To achieve this, our UX team has embarked on developing an AI-powered application tailored to the needs of these brands.

This report outlines the research insights that informed our design decisions. By understanding the unique challenges faced by smaller fashion brands, we aim to create a solution that enhances efficiency, fosters creativity, and drives competitiveness in a demanding industry.

Timeline

30 days

Role

UI Designer

Wireframes, High Fiedility Prototypes,Branding, Accessibility, Usability Testing

Goal

To create a solution that truly works, we first explored the best practices and popular tools shaping the fashion industry today. This groundwork helped us have more meaningful conversations with designers, focusing on their wants and needs. We spoke with seven designers to get a well-rounded understanding of the industry and distilled what we learned into key insights. These insights became the foundation for our proposed solution.

Secondary Research

Generative AI Impact:
- McKinsey & Company estimates AI could add $150–$275 billion to operating profits in the fashion and luxury sectors.
- Embracing AI is crucial for designers to stay competitive and capitalize on profit opportunities.
AI in Design & Development:
- Facilitates “co-designing,” speeding up content creation, and unlocking new creative possibilities.
- Enables experimentation with diverse styles and looks.
Investment Growth:
- Equity funding for generative AI-focused start-ups reached $14.1 billion in the first half of 2023.
- Highlights industry confidence in AI’s transformative potential.
AI is not just a tool—it’s shaping the future of fashion by enhancing creativity and boosting profitability.

Competitive Analysis

We began with a competitive analysis of popular fashion design applications, identifying key tools and trends (see feature inventory chart). By creating accounts on standout apps, we explored their workflows in-depth to understand the end-to-end design process. This approach provided valuable insights and inspiration for developing our own innovative solution.

AI Feature

3D Rendering

Tech Pack Export

Collaboration

Inspiration

Drawing Tool

Illustrator

CLO

CALA

Tailor Nova

User Interviews

To deepen our understanding, we conducted seven interviews with fashion designers from diverse backgrounds. These conversations provided unbiased insights into their design processes, the tools they rely on, and the frustrations they face.
The insights gained from these interviews were instrumental in shaping our understanding of user needs and identifying opportunities for improvement in the design workflow.
(Refer to the chart below for a detailed breakdown of our interview participants.)

User Interview Synthesis

We synthesized the findings from our user interviews by creating an affinity map, which helped us identify common frustrations shared by fashion designers. This process was crucial in distilling our "key insights," which became the foundation for guiding the design of Hilmi’s application.

From our affinity map findings, we narrowed down three key insights:

Tech packs are super important to the design process, but they are tedious and take a lot of time
Fashion designers want a collaborative workspace
Inspiration is valuable and it would be helpful to the design process if it were easily accessible

How Might We?

To hone in on target areas, we performed a “How Might We” exercise where our team brainstormed a variety of ways we could resolve user frustrations.

The most important pain points we targeted include the following:

How might we speed up the design process?
How might we enable the “little guy” to compete with larger brands?
How might we create a collaborative community?
How might we create tech packs?
How might we incorporate AI?

User Flow

We created user flows to serve as a blueprint for designing Hilmi, guiding the development process. These flows allow us to illustrate the user journey in the prototype, effectively showcasing and justifying the features we chose to implement.

Design Studio

After defining the vision for the application and how it would address the main problem, we began ideating on its design through a group sketching exercise.

We focused on sketching the layouts for three key pages: the community page, the dashboard page, and the tech pack creation page.

Wireframes

After sketching our initial ideas, we refined them by creating low to mid-fidelity wireframes. These wireframes brought together our team’s ideas and drew inspiration from popular tools in the fashion and UX industries, such as Illustrator and Figma.

Application High fidelity wireframes.jpg

Usability Testing

To validate our wireframes and ensure they were on the right track, we conducted five usability tests with fashion designers.

Here are the key insights we gathered from the tests:

Home Button Confusion: The home button was not always visually clear, leading to user confusion (see images below).
Need for Clarification: Users expressed a need for more descriptive text and clarification boxes.
Community Page Navigation: While the community page was well-received conceptually, users found it unclear how to navigate to or use it effectively.
Modal Interaction Issues: Closing the modal was not intuitive for users.

These findings provided valuable feedback to guide further improvements to the wireframes.

Prototype

Quick Note:
While I am unable to directly add the prototype here, I encourage you to explore the Figma link for a detailed view of the design and functionality. This prototype offers a comprehensive look at the user interface and experience, showcasing the key features and flows we've developed for the project. Feel free to explore it at your convenience for a better understanding of the design concept.