ADITYA BIRLA FASHION AND RETAIL Fabric Grading System
Aditiya Birla Fashion and Retail is a leading fashion house in India that manages some of the country’s biggest brands. I worked with their Madhura house that included Louis Philippe (507 stores), Peter England (1108 stores), Allen Solly (384 stores), and Van Heusen (448 stores).
Store managers across these brands were required to travel to bi-yearly trade shows to book fabrics and products, which was time-consuming and costly. To address this, the company introduced the Fabric Grading System (FGS) to digitize fabric booking, reducing the need for physical attendance.
As a UX-UI Designer for this project, I was responsible for:
- Conducting user research to understand the shortcomings of the first phase.
- Designing improved user flows, wireframes, and prototypes.
- Ensuring that the platform addressed the needs of store managers and designers.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM AREA
Traditioally, the store managers used to travel to attend a bi-yearly trade shows to book fabrics and products. These events lasted for almost a week to 10 days and a huge budget was used to organise these and get the sample products made.
1. Costly for the brands to organise meetings and physical samples.
2. The Wait for the fabric sample is around 30 - 60 day. Its a lot time consuming.
3. Difficult for store managers to travel to attend 7 days shows.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
This platfrom would be used by the store managers and the desigenrs at the Hq’s. We went in with designing for Store managers first and understanding them better.
STORE MANAGERS:
They needed an easy-to-use, time-efficient platform to book fabrics and products without traveling.
THE DESIGNERS AT HQ’s :
They required real-time feedback from store managers to gauge which products were working in market.
The first Round of testing started when i joined the team. I was responseble to carry out the User-testing, analysing and sythesing the data from all the sessions.
- Interviews: Conducted 1:1 interviews with store managers from across the country, (we made sure we coverd North, east, south and west stores of the country) and designers at headquarters.
- Surveys & Feedback Forms: Distributed to collect data on specific pain points and feature requests.
- Moderated Usability Testing: We planned on keeping Moderated testing as it would be easily to talk to the users and map thier feelings.
Analysis
After running a user-testing and feedback loop we landed on a bunch of problems the user (store managers) faced during the process. The first step after all the data collected was to categorise them and prioritize.
- Key Findings
- Complicated Interface: The platform’s navigation was confusing, leading to a high abandonment rate.
- Slow Loading Times: The system’s 3D fabric models were not optimized, causing delays.
- Lack of Real-Time Data: Store managers couldn’t make informed decisions without seeing the latest sales trends and consumer preferences.
- Feedback Loop Missing: Designers had no mechanism to receive feedback on fabric selections, limiting their ability to iterate quickly.
- Geographical Restrictions: The system did not account for regional preferences, which store managers needed to make localized decisions.
The suggestions were addressed on two different levels. The UI changes were easier to implement and didn’t require much effort. However, the other more functional suggestions required several sessions with the developers and management team. Some were more challenging to resolve than others.
The suggestions were addressed on two different levels. The UI changes were easier to implement and didn’t require much effort. However, the other more functional suggestions required several sessions with the developers and management team. Some were more challenging to resolve than others.
Prototype:
This is a prototype i made to initally get some things approved by the higher management, it went through a lot of iterations. Now this prototype helps me explain people how it worked as the B2B system would not be used anywhere outside the company’s network.
This prototype lacks Micro interactions and smooth switches as it was more important to get the system right and the flow right at that point. we fixed and added those later. But don’t happen to have an updated prototype.
Outcome & Impact
Cost Savings: The platform reduced travel and event costs by digitizing the bi-yearly booking process.
Improved Designer Feedback: Designers could now access timely feedback, allowing for more responsive product updates.
Faster Decision-Making: Store managers reported a 30% reduction in the time it took to make product selections.
Increased Adoption: Store managers' adoption of the platform increased by 40%, as the new system was significantly easier to use.
For me this project reinforced the importance of user-centered design and iterative feedback.
- By focusing on the core needs of the store managers and designers, we were able to create a system that solved real-world problems, ultimately improving efficiency across the board.
- The success of Phase 2 was driven by the collaborative approach of engaging users throughout the process and continuously refining the product based on their feedback.
- This project also help me understand and learn how to proccess through large chunks of research data collected accross different locatiions and prioritise the concerns.
- Important discussion happend around removing bias while store managers were asked to fill the survey. keep them anonymus so they can be more honest with their feedbacks was tried in certain rounds.