Virtual U
Individual Work
Duration: 6 weeks (July, 2019)
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign
Overview
Cfierce is an E-commerce designer brand I co-founded with two fashion designers. As a new designer brand, how to expand its market and attract more customers is a big problem we are facing. In this project, I design a game to increase our brand awareness.
The game targets subculturalists. Users can build their own subcultural avatar and conduct virtual fitting. I intend to bind the brand Cfierce with the concept of subculture, therefore establishing a clear brand image through the game. And it would trigger players' desire to share the game, and thus expand our market share of subculturalists.
Features
Design process
Design Process
Market analysis of past data
Market data: To define the brand CFIERCE, I collected the market data over the past year and compared it.
Visual analysis: I selected some representative data from the data sorted in the first step and analyzed it through visualization. And then I found the abnormal data.
Overall number of visitors in each month
How to read?
1. Starting from 2018-Jan on the left side, the clockwise sequence shows the change of market data in the past year.
2. The upper half-circle is the data of 2018, and the lower half-circle is the data of 2019, and the comparison can be clearly seen.
Marked with volatile data, the analysis results are shown on the right site.
Due to a well-known blogger from the subculture circle reposted an advertisement from Cfierce, a number of new buyers were attracted.
The average time of staying is lower than the industry average, which means the content is not attractive enough.
Carried out the Chinese Spring Festival as the theme of marketing activities, effectively improve sales.
Missed the joint marketing activities of other merchants, resulting in a high bounce rate and low payment conversion rate.
According to the keywords of user characteristics, advertisements were put on social media, which effectively increased sales.
Payment Conversion Rate
= Number of customers who purchase/Number of visitors
Number of paid buyers
Number of new buyers
Average time of stay
Bounce Rate
= Single Page Visitors / Total Visitors
Insight 1:
Insight 2:
Reflection
Some subculturalists are more accepting of Cfierce's products.
The marketing campaign can effectively increase sales and users.
In order to stimulate the brand market, the marketing campaign should be planned according to audiences' preferences. The first step is to find out the audience's common ground, and I decided to focus on the group of subculture lovers.
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Insight 3:
Users have emotional connections with avatars created by themselves (e.g., identity, affection, and passion).
Insight 4:
Avatars representing users' actual appearance lead positive impact on user reviews of apparel products.
Literature research
Studies in youth subculturalists, such as enthusiasts of punks, goths, or Harajuku style, show that clothing and bodily adornment are sorts of main symbolic statements of their values. And studies add strength to the argument that the Internet is a gathering site for subculturalists and a medium for the expression of a subcultural identity.
To understand our target user group of subculture lovers and the emotional factors of this group on virtual characters, I did some literature reviews to see what’s already been published. Some of the highlights are below:
Comparative Products Analysis
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Through the literature research, I decided to use a virtual avatar as a method to build the connection between the brand and the user.
To understand the application of virtual avatars, I analyzed competitive products and found that virtual avatar is more widely used in the field of photography and games. How to establish its relationship with clothing products will be a challenge.
Insight 5:
User facial recognition and augmented reality technologies are effective to create user resembled avatars.
User Research
Reflection
According to the results of the questionnaire, I know the priorities for features of the game. The bigger will be given higher priority, while the smaller would be given the lower one.
Insight 6:
Insight 7:
Insight 8:
Unable to try on clothes is a major drawback of online shopping, which discourages buyers from purchasing subcultural products.
Most respondents separate subcultural interests from real life because of the lack of intermediaries and connections.
Many respondents indicated that they had purchased/been willing to purchase peripheral products for related characters (including the game's protagonist, characters controlled by themselves, etc.).
Existing User Journey Map
I list the pain points and highlights of the user journey process. The varied size and color the were used to represent the changes in their mood during the process.
Design Principle
1
Because users subconsciously scroll up and down to browse more item options, I would use waterfalls flow to show the item box in the next stage.
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During testing, users rarely noticed the purchase feature. Add shopping cart icon and wish list icon to more pages in the next phase of the design.
3
After the photo is taken, there is no selection page for the initial model. Add this page, and add more initial models to the page. It would make it easier for players to mold their own face. It would also increase the similarity between the avatar and the player.
Paper prototype
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Wireframe
Added color wheel allowing users to change the color of clothes to obtain relevant market information of user preferences.
Pictures to show similar products are too small, it is hard for users to capture key information. Delete subordinate information and enlarge the pictures and descriptions of the products.
Add pop-ups to invite friends and take a group photo. And thus to stimulate users' desire to share.
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