MINARA MOWSHUMI
User Experience Researcher and Designer
Salute for Style
Salute for Style is a therapeutic, non-profit organization that provides personalized wardrobes and professional workshops for our women military heroes.
Salute for Style is a new Non-profit organization, and hence it is not still well known and the service that they are providing.
Problem Space
Team Members
Angela L. Ackerman, Salute for Style Founder
Minara , UX/UI Researcher and Designer
Jean, UX/UI Researcher and Designer
Zohair, UX/UI Researcher and Designer
Tim, Marketing Specialist
(Also carried out cross functional collaborative worked with Fashion department and Business Depart )
Overview
Salute for Style closes the confidence gap by providing wear-to-work wardrobes and business therapy for women military heroes in transition for career success by reducing workplace inequalities. Our target audience include active duty military, veteran, military spouses, women in defense and public servants.
Objective
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Build a proper online platform for Salute for Style (S4S)
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Collaborate with UX/UI Team to represent S4S to various prospective partners.
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Collaborate with other departments to understand the value and goals for the company
My Role
I am one of the members from our UX/UI Designer team. My team and I are responsible to create branding, website, logo for various project that we present to your potential clients for funding.
We also collaborate with other team members to gain knowledge from others to see what changes must be taken to improve the site traction.
Tools
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Figma
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Google sites
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Adobe photoshop
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Flipcause
Submission Requirements & Deliverables
Projects:
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48 in 48: 48 Free Nonprofit Websites in 48 hours
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Team Responsibility: Secondary research, branding, Sitemaps and logo design
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Collab: Fundraising Clients
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Team Responsibility: Secondary Research, Competitive Research, Branding and Presentation
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Building Google Website as prototype
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Team Responsibility: Secondary Research, Competitive Research, User Survey, Information Architect, Building Wireframes, Low fidelity and High fidelity Designs, Validations
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Using Flipcause to rebuild S4S website
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From the prototype we build in google website we decided to use flipcause to make our website.
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Communications:
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The Students will contact the company by WhatsApp message to notify of project milestones.
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Zoom calls will be scheduled as twice each week one for the UX/UI Team and one company wide meeting.
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The Students request the company’s approval of each deliverable before moving on to the next phase of the project
DISCOVER
Competitive Analysis
For each of our projects my team and I had to do some competitive research and analysis with other non-profit companies, specially those that dealt with retail work. The problem we set to solve was to help S4S look into its competitor and see how they handle their websites and other benefits that made them work and how might we bring better traction to S4S.
Our competitors included:
DEFINE
Affinity Mapping
How Might WE (HMW)
Our problem statement and HMWs:
Problem Statement
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No online platform to upload pic
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The user journey to order cloths is very lengthy
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No traction or result on web browser.
HMW
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Introduce online platform to upload our products
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Make user’s usability easier
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Introduce s4s when users do web search
Some Ideas to explore
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Create a google site (Free good for start up)
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Use Pinterest to upload pictures it is free to use
IDEATE & VALIDATE
Sitemap
Some Ideas to explore
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Create a google site (Free good for start up)
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Use Pinterest to upload pictures it is free to use. We thought of using Shopify, but ended up using Pinterest as it was a free platform.
User Flow
Sketch
We began the fun part with some quick brainstorming and sketching
Wireframing
I went ahead and used Figma to make some Low fidelity wireframe translating to more digital prototyping wireframe to help with usability testing.
Validating
Issue#1
We were not yet ready to set up store page as we did not have the proper infrastructure as a start up non-profit organization.
Hence we needed a free platform that will allow us to upload free photos.
Also there is the issue as to how do we confirm that the women that are applying are actually military.
Issue#2
Team member page was a bit cluttered. The initial idea was to arrange the members alphabetically. But one group member pointed out that new colleagues or interns will have difficulty finding their teammates.
Issue#3
Donation is an integral part of any non-profit. Welcome page MUST have a donation option.
Iterate
Iteration for issue 1
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Instead of setting up a store page like those available online, we are opting for a rather length, but budget friendly route.
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From the user flow we see the new route for getting a wardrobe is either by visiting the Pinterest page or visiting the wardrobe page and then following through Pinterest
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We also decided to make users fill out a form to verify they are military personal.
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Iteration for issue 2
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We divided the teams according to their title. So, newcomers would know to look for their team mate accordingly.
Iteration for issue 3
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Add donation button to the home page
BRAND STYLE & HIGH FIDELITY
Brand Style
High Fidelity Prototype
Current Work
Setting up google business
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While in the process of building the website, we realized that we did not have a proper search result when users looked for in web browser. So we decided to set up the google business.
Our Fashion Team
Our fashion team at work. They were collecting content for our Pinterest page
FUTURE WORK
Our latest work is revolving around Logo Designing.
We have been brainstorming not only with in the UX team, but everyone enjoys chipping in giving their idea and it has been very helpful. Some were created and some were inspired. We are still not set on any one design, but it is work on progress.
Final Thoughts
It is a great experience working in Salute for style. The staff are super cooperative and we all love working together. With great cause and a big opportunity to learn this has been a great experience.