BRA FIT AND FEEL RESEARCH
Researching the Bra Shopping Experience
How can we design a better bra shopping experience online?
Project Challenge
In my customer research with American Eagle and Aerie shoppers, I had uncovered an insight that it is difficult for customers to assess fit and feel when shopping for clothes online. The Aerie bra team wanted to know how we could specifically improve the online shopping experience for bras, a category where we know our customer has a very high standard for fit and feel.
The Aerie bra team tasked us with helping them address this challenge. Before we began brainstorming, I recommended that we run a research study into our customer’s experience shopping for a bra on aerie.com, receiving that item in the mail and wearing the bra they purchased. We would then share the research findings in the context of a human centered design workshop with a cross disciplinary group, brainstorming how we could address the insights and pain points uncovered in our research. In this way, our brainstorms would be grounded in real customer data.
My Role
I was the lead researcher on this project, leading a team of two other researchers in this study. I also designed the activities for the cross-disciplinary workshop that took place after the research findings were shared.
My responsibilities included:
Designing the research protocol, tasks and scripts
Analyzing the research findings
Share research findings with cross functional stakeholders
Plan and facilitate workshop to address insights and pain points found in research
Research Activities
Research Methods
For this study, we chose dScout as our research tool. dScout is a video journaling that allowed us to see the customer’s in the moment reactions to various points across the customer journey . dScout also allows us to recruit participants from all over the country. We had our dScout participants tell us about their general experiences shopping for bras and their preferences of shopping in store versus online. We had them film a series of videos so that we have insight into the entire process. They first filmed themselves browsing for a bra on aere.com and then their reactions videos to the try-on and usage experience: opening the package, their reaction post try-on, and their reaction after wearing the bra for a day.
Research Analysis
After the participants, had competed the dscout mission, we analyzed all of the open-ended responses and videos we received from participants. We pulled out key quotes and insights and put them onto post-its. We then affinitized those post-its into key thematic areas we saw coming out of the research. We also analyzed the customer’s comments to answer our key research questions - what steps do customers take to shop online for bras and how are successful are Aerie customers at those tasks.
From this research, we were able to get a good picture of the pain and hassle of bra shopping for the Aerie demographic and how difficult it can be to find your perfect fit.
Design Workshop
Sharing Insights
The goal of the research was to use our findings to kick off a workshop with a cross disciplinary group that would brainstorm solutions based on the pain points we uncovered in our research. We shared our key insights at the beginning of the workshop, showing customer videos from our dScout participants with each key finding to build empathy with our bra shoppers.
Brainstorming Solutions
After presenting the findings, we jumped into the workshop with a group of participants from all over the Aerie brand: marketing, site and store merchandising, digital product management, user experience designers and researchers, and bra designers. I designed each of the activities of the workshop including empathy mapping, brainstorming ideas around “How Might We…” thought starters, and a creating a poster of their vision for the future Aerie bra shopping experience. I also had the group vote on their favorite ideas to prioritize which ideas to pursue.
Results
After the workshop, I gave the Aerie bra marketing and product management teams a prioritized list of ideas from the group. I also worked with them to great a prioritized roadmap of how to implement the ideas that came out of the work to address the fit and feel challenges we found in our research. The digital product management team at Aerie has prioritized initiatives that came out the workshop like showing multiple models and model details on the product detail page and emphasizing the free shipping and returns callouts throughout the site.