Depop is a peer-to-peer social e-commerce company

Role: Group Project (Team of 4)

Timeline: 2 week sprint March 2022

Type: Mobile App

Tools: Figma, Zoom, Maze, Slack

1 x User Survey
6 x User Interviews
6 x Mid-Fi Prototype Testing
6 x Hi-Fi Prototype Testing

UX Skills

Discover: Competitive & Comparative Analysis, User Surveys & Interviews, Affinity Map

Define: User Persona, User Journey 

Develop: User Flow, Wireframing, Sketching, Prototyping, User Testing

Deliver: Mid & Hi-Fidelity Prototype, Presentation (20 mins)

The Brief

Depop wanted to go further into their mission of combatting fast fashion and waste by building or adding a clothes swap or clothes rental feature to their native app. 

This “Swap or Rent” feature would be the challenge that would ultimately be decided after all our research was completed but was a constant dilemma running through our heads!

The Industry

We uncovered some pretty awful facts about what Depop are up against when it comes to fast fashion and why brands like them are so important.

• Up to 1 Billion new garments are made every year.

• A rubbish truck of clothes is burned or landfilled every single second!

• 73% of unwanted clothing is still incinerated or landfilled. 

One thing that is clear, is that Depop understands that secondhand shopping doesn’t eliminate fashion’s impact on the environment, but it does help to reduce it by extending the lifetime of a garment & ultimately leading to less demand for brand new items.

Depop’s Research 

In terms of Depop’s existing users, they have over 30 million of them, spanning 150 countries with more than 32 million items available for sale. 

And with 90% of active users under 26 we were going to have to get into the mindset of Gen Z and what really makes them tick.

Depop have also done a fair bit of research themselves and we uncovered a recent user survey they conducted in 2020.

Mainly what interested us from Depop’s research were the motivations for users to buy second hand items. These included:

• Reducing consumption.

• Value for money and if it helps the planet, even better!

• Uniqueness of the items users are buying to truly help them express themselves.

• Trend tapping, the social side of the app where users who follow various accounts and styles can purchase items accordingly.

Goals & Assumptions

We needed a research plan to guide us in the right direction, a point of reference for when we inevitably got too carried away.

We knew our business goals:

• Combat fast fashion.

• Promote sustainability. 

• Create a global community for the next generation.

And we made some bold assumptions, but hey, Depop is a bold brand! 

• Users would prefer using a mobile platform.

• Users would be more conscious of the environmental impact of fast fashion. 

• Users prefer to rent clothing & accessories for specific events.

I’ll explain later how these assumptions were challenged by our research findings and ultimately, if any of them were disproven.

“It's pretty awful and grim when you think about the textile industry and the exploitation. If you're not paying for it, someone is and they're probably paying with their f**king lives!”

Our Research - Personas

Tallulah

Meet Tallulah. Our recent graduate and free spirit, starting her first job in the real world. She’s a PR assistant at Liberty Communications.

It’s a dog eat dog world there, but Tallulah can more than hold her own. She has a vintage-chique style, has strong opinions on fast fashion labelling it “an absolutely f**king disgusting travesty” … And it goes without saying, she’s a vegan.

This leads her to mostly shop for secondhand clothing and accessories, as she cares deeply about sustainability, but no longer has all day to browse her favourite market places for those unique finds! 

She desperately needs to keep refreshing her wardrobe and be “on trend” as word spreads quickly if you wear the same outfit twice. There’s a lot of “gossips” at work. Especially Janet the receptionist.

She also has to find a way of keeping her costs down, “who knew London could be so f**king expensive!” Is one of Tallulah’s favourite sentences. 

Her frustrations had become very clear to us. 

• It’s far too expensive for Tallulah to find unique items these days.

• And to frequently refresh her wardrobe, she’s contributing to fast fashion!

Something had to be done, or we would feel her wrath! And she wasn’t going to make us cry, not again.

Samantha

Based on our interviews a second less prominent persona was created, her name’s Samantha and for the love of god don’t say “less prominent” to her face.

Samantha’s older, has more money, the kind of person Tallulah would like to be when she grows up.

She buys second hand clothes but only to find pieces that are unique, that no one else has, real head turners.

She’s willing to spend more money and wait longer for the perfect item. Like that Cavalli dress for the work Christmas “do” … Maybe that will finally catch Timothy from accounting’s eye?

We decided to focus on Tallulah as this was where the majority of our interviews were pointing. But don’t worry Samantha, we haven’t forgotten about you. 

Problem Statement

This brought us to our problem statement. How could we create a punchy sentence that incorporates Tallulah’s needs and pain points in a concise manner? We went with:

“Tallulah needs a way to frequently and sustainably refresh her wardrobe with on-trend items, so that she can stay fashionable whilst not going over her budget.”

This became our mantra, it hit all of Tallulah’s goals and solved most of her pain points … She had a lot of them, and we’re not miracle workers. 

How Might We’s

“How Might We’s” are usually good fun, however this time there seemed to be more pressure. We were desperate to impress Tallulah so we furiously scribbled down as many as we could and then narrowed the list down to key statements, with the most prominent ones being:

“How might we provide Tallulah with a straightforward and stress free experience?” 

This was big, we couldn’t handle another one of her outbursts! 

And “How might we find items that suit her needs within her budget?” 

Keeping costs down for Tallulah would meet that need … And ensure our safety.

Tallulah’s Journey

Opportunities 

After calming Tallulah down with some light breathing exercises and matcha tea, we were able to highlight the opportunities that arose from her journey.

Recommending items based on her style.

Mindless scrolling was a big trigger point in the journey and something we should be able to easily address, especially with her existing Depop DNA.

Create a cost effective solution. 

This is Tallulah’s overriding problem. She’s constantly rotating her wardrobe at great cost. 

“Can we find a way to solve this one?” We were confident a sort of swap function could do this, as shipping would be her only cost, with the added bonus of her outdated clothes finally being moved on.

Build and promote a trustworthy relationship with the user. 

We need to keep Tallulah happy at all costs. Our swap function would only work if there is an element of trust between the users and with Depop itself. 

And if we’ve learned anything from this, it’s that Gen Z are an extremely vocal bunch. 

If there was no trust, we’d soon hear about it.

User Flow 

With Tallulah’s user journey fresh in our minds we began to craft an initial user flow.

It would simply involve Talullah, who already has a Depop account, swapping an item of clothing for her own, paying, then confirming she received the item.

Design Studio

We needed ideas on the page, and we needed them fast. Design studio-ing seemed like the best way to do this.

We came up with 24 ideas between us, some more feasible than others.

We then iterated on the best of these ideas and had another go at the 5 minute challenge, this time with a little more guidance. After giving each other fair critiques and reviewing all of our options, we were left with some relatively acceptable ideas to take into more detailed sketching.

 Wireframes

• Our initial wireframes began straight away with Tallulah already signed in as an existing Depop user, and on the new swap landing page.

• Here on this first screen we wanted her to have the ability to import her existing DNA, a feature that already exists on Depop wherein the user can set style and size preferences.

• From here, the flow moves through the swap edit search for a floral midi dress she just knows will be the perfect weekend brunch fit after a long week. Each item that appears on any of the swap screens will feature a swap icon at the bottom right of the images indicating that it is available for swapping.

• On the product detail page, Tallulah can select an item of equal value or bundle multiple items in a bid to persuade the swapper even more to accept her swap proposal. Next she’ll find herself at a review page and then a confirmation page.

Components

Simultaneously, our team began to build up our component library with the icons and buttons extracted from the main Depop app. In addition to the usual suspects like home, search, and user, we of course needed to add a recognisable swap icon as well as a Depop Swap header to help differentiate the main selling/buying homepage from the swap area, as they would remain otherwise set up nearly identically.

Testing

We would be testing our app through Maze and moderated Zoom chats with most of the original 6 interviewees making a reappearance in a nice circle of life kind of way.

Confident that Tallulah’s happy path was relatively straightforward we sat back and watched as our brain child got chewed up and spat back out by this harsh world we live in!

Positives

So to start off with, the positives. 

• Users found the swap symbol on the footer to be intuitive and easy to find and differentiate from the rest of the footer options. 

• The journey was clear and our branding stayed consistent enough. 

Negatives

Of course, we had some hiccups, some more significant than any of us anticipated. 

• While the majority were able to finish, we had two users properly give up. 

• We found that the biggest issues included a confusing start screen and users not understanding our swap payment model. “Why are we being expected to pay?! Doesn’t that defeat the purpose.”

Iterations

We needed to remind ourselves throughout this process that “We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents”. 

This is incredibly apt when it comes to Iterations. They allow us to improve on our product based on the feedback from potential users. So that’s what we did.

High Fidelity Prototype Walkthrough

Next Steps

Of course as UX Designers, we’re never done, and we can iterate until the cows come home. But at some point you have to say stop. For us, that point was when we reached the end of the sprint.

However, with more time and possibly a budget (at this point we’d just take a free coffee) our next steps would play out like this:

1. We would include a journey perspective from the other swapper, being notified of Tallulah’s interest in their items and how they might communicate with a counter proposal. We would pay good money to see this interaction!

2. Subscription plans based on number of swaps. This will increase trust with the business and create longer life users. It would also generate more regular income for Depop which can only be a good thing.

3. How Tallulah might add an item to her list of products. A key feature that wasn’t particularly necessary for her happy path in our prototyping.

4. How to buy a product from the “Swap” product detail page. You’re allowed to change your mind, and if you decide to treat yourself by purchasing that new dress outright, there should be a function that allows you to do that.

5. Live In-Person Swaps would be our Non-Digital component. Where users would meet up at a specific location and swap their items in person, galvanising the sense of community that Depop promotes.

And can you imagine a room full of Tallulah's all swapping items together? We can, it’s pure, beautiful, pandemonium. Of course there would need to be solid ground rules … And heavy security.

There would need to be a fair chunk of additional research, and testing with more information about Swapping businesses, as our original assumptions led us to believe renting would be the way to go.

Of course more interviews would also need to be conducted but this proved to be highly entertaining the first time round.

And if you have a spare minute and love a bit of conflict, check out “Depop Dramas” on instagram. We promise you won’t be disappointed. 

Conclusion & Key Learnings

This was without a shadow of a doubt my favourite project. Yes, Depop is a fun brand to work on. And yes, and I got to implement everything we’d been learning for the past month prior to the project. But the main reason this was the most enjoyable was down to the team. 

We had no say in the matter, it was luck that we all got on like a house on fire from the very beginning, although I’m sure the tutors will claim they knew all along. 

When everyone is aligned it makes things run so smoothly and effortlessly. At times when checking in with other groups it made us feel guilty that we weren’t panicking for dear life. 

“Divide and conquer” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in UX I’ve noticed, and for good reason. Once we divided our tasks into pairs we moved very quickly through the process. We always remained in the same Zoom breakout room though, on mute, but always there, like otters holding hands as they float gently downstream together. 

A kanban board is another great way to galvanise a team. With each part of the process broken down into smaller chunks, the satisfaction of moving a task to the “completed” section is unparalleled.

Finally, we all knew our strengths and weaknesses at this point in the course. There’s no shame in saying, “I’d rather not do that.” This really helped our group, we were all open books after the first day. We held no secrets … But anything else they might say about me is a dirty lie.