Perf-ex
Personalised perfume recommendations with the help of AI!
Timeline
October, 2023 - January 2024 (12 weeks)
My Role
Student project for ‘User Experience Design’ in collaboration with Coduct Solutions GmbH
PROBLEM
Customers often feel overwhelmed and lack expert guidance when choosing fragrances in stores..
Leading to lacking shopping experiences.
THE SOLUTION
Personalized perfume companion for YOU.
Guiding effortless scent discovery in stores with interactive screens and tailored fragrance journeys
Understands your preference
Engages users by collecting initial background information to kickstart the personalized fragrance journey.
Continues the process by delving deeper into user preferences and desires, ensuring a tailored experience from the start.
Gives personalized recommendation
Encourages users to select at least two preferred scent types, refining the recommendation process based on their olfactory preferences.
Generates the top three fragrance recommendations based on user inputs, delivering a curated selection tailored to their desires and use cases.
CLIENT + USER INTERVIEWS
While the client wanted to reduce the return rate of perfumes, the users constantly reiterated the fact that the description on product and recommendation on online platform and in-store was lacking. Hmm….
RESEARCH
Inadequate fragrance descriptions and recommendations lead to high return rates.
“The return rate of industry is 4.3%. It may consider that the figures are not that high, but according to a survey, 25% of shoppers tend to send back as much as 15% of goods purchased online.”
How to deal with it?
Mitigating false expectations, poor quality, and misleading descriptions in both retail and online platforms, providing users with transparent and accurate information for confident perfume selections that tailored to them.
USER NEEDS & REQUIREMENTS
From the research and interviews, key user needs and subsequently user requirements were identified along with appropriate context of use. These were based on industry standards; ISO/IEC 25063:20149(E), ISO/IEC 25064:2013(E) and ISO 25065:2019(E) with slight modification. They key takeaways from that were:
Efficient In-Store Experience
Support for In-store Expert
Improved Online Shopping Experience
DESIGN
Setbacks + a new direction
At first, the idea was to implement the solution across three different platforms: an application, a website & an interactive in-store screen. However, upon thinking about the implementation and strict deadline of the project, the effort was then just focused on creating an interactive in-store screen, since users were already going to store to smell and try perfume and buying it online for ease and discount. From this, the idea of combining the ease of online and effectiveness of offline experience emerged.
TESTING
“Improve the contrast of screen”
“Make the ‘learn more’ option towards the end more intuitive”
Opinions were largely positive regarding the system's navigation function, with many users expressing high satisfaction with its performance. Impressions of the UI design were favorable, with users appreciating its clarity and intuitiveness, particularly in the context of fragrance selection
FIGMA PROTOTYPE
Final screen in the retail stores
CONCLUSION + LESSON LEARNED
What I’d do differently next time.
In summary, there are several adjustments I would consider for future endeavors to optimize outcomes. Key aspects of the project included addressing user needs for customization, clarity, and seamless shopping journeys across multiple channels. The project also adhered to industry standards, such as ISO/IEC 25064:2013(E), ensuring a high-quality, reliable system. Despite its success, there are areas for improvement, such as:
I would explore different screen contrast modes to enhance user interface accessibility.
I would prioritize more efficient project timeline management to ensure timely milestones without compromising quality.
I would expand the user interview pool to gather a broader spectrum of insights for refining system recommendations and usability.