Encourage Browse in Digital Archive for Black Style Enthusiasts

Background

There are a number of Black creatives who have taken the initiative to document Black fashion - many using social media to catalog and spread awareness of Black culture and it’s impact on society from past to present day. For example, but not limited to: archivealive by Tianni Janae', Black Fashion Fair by Antoine Gregory, and Black Fashion Archive by Rikki Byrd. However the social media accounts aren't optimal to search through, leaving users scrolling through the accounts for inspiration.

Shelby Ivey Christie, a prominent Black fashion historian, discusses record-keeping as a means to right the wrong of American society's erasure of Black contributions for centuries, especially with its export of Black American culture. This in combination with cultural appropriation and the exit of iconic subcultures like GHE20G0TH1K, the need to document and simultaneously protect culture is evident. This digital archive centers around recognizing Black American cultural impact in entertainment, including across the global Black diaspora, and cataloging personal style.

Design Process

Search and Filter UX

The emergence of AI may improve the experience

Pinterest relies on their AI suggestions to provide an efficient, personalized, and relevant search experience instead of an extensive filter menu.

How important is specificity in developing personal style?

Introducing Michiko Malandro, she loves to thrift and reminisce.

Opportunity Statement

When developing personal style, Black adults need to feel represented so that they can easily discover and access sources of inspiration to reference.

Nudge users to browse

During testing, visually-driven industries such as apparel and home decoration in particular saw a clear bias toward category navigation – both in terms of the subjects’ initial preference and their subsequent success rate.
Baymard Institute

Reduce decision making

The more stimuli to choose from, the longer it takes the user to make a decision on which one to interact with.
Hick's Law

Accommodate complex filter criteria for shopping

Utilize AI to categorize criteria for browse and filter

Validate by Testing

Efficiency

Discoverability

I don't see my private albums. Oh, I didn't know I could scroll.

Personalization

I didn't notice the suggested options until the end of the test.

View the prototype.

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Final Wireframes

Purple is balanced well by neutrals—especially in combination with shades of brown, which add a level of sophistication and diminish the 'cuteness' that is sometimes associated with purple.
Michael Del Piero

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Reflection

I was able to encourage users to browse their personalized archives due to a couple key findings:

1. Provide discoverable and clear paths for users to explore the app
2. Include personalization to curate an efficient search and filter system

Looking back, I could validate assumptions more throughly by:

1. Iteratively test the Search Autocomplete and AI features with new participants of different age ranges
2. Limit focus on search and filter in the public archive so tests have a narrow focus

Making these changes would align us closer with our mission statement:

When developing personal style, Black adults need to feel represented so that they can easily discover and access sources of inspiration to reference.