CINCH JEANS
App design
OVERVIEW
I took on this three-week project completely virtually with my UX/UI bootcamp teammate, Meg Carpenter. We created an IOS mobile app for the Colorado based western apparel brand, Cinch Jeans. Cinch Jeans currently has an e-commerce website but not any supplemental applications. We were proud to highlight this legendary company not only because of the quality jeans and shirts they create both in and out of the rodeo arena, but also because I currently work here as the Retail Store Manager!
“Lead, don’t follow.”
A Cinch Jeans video showcasing the Spring 2018 collection.
Century old Miller International launched Cinch Jeans in 1996, immediately positioning itself as a leader in the ranching and western industries. Today, Cinch Jeans is a favorite among rodeo athletes, oil and gas workers, and anyone who desires durable yet stylish clothing for their lifestyle. “Lead, don’t follow”, which is the brand’s motto, became our north star for this design project.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
With the increase of online shopping coupled with COVID-19 retail restrictions, consumers demand usable and educational mobile shopping platforms more than ever.
Cinch customers need a better digital connection to the company that provides clear and comprehensive product information, store and merchandise availability and tailored mobile shopping experiences.
PROJECT GOALS
Identify gaps in the user's online and in-store shopping experience through stakeholder interviews, guerilla marketing and in-store shopping observation.
Alleviate confusion of clothing style and fit by adding thorough product details, additional photos and relevant customer reviews/ratings.
Incorporate a store locator feature through a zip code entry form or by accessing the user’s location to connect consumers with retailers when they prefer to buy local or shop in person.
RESEARCH METHODS
We kicked off this journey with three stakeholder interviews, where I spoke with our Cinch Factory Store Lead, Marketing Manager, and Brand Manager in order to gain a better understanding of the company's short and long term goals, mission, customer demographics, and any unique selling points. I also inquired about their ideas and suggestions for what a new Cinch Jeans mobile app might encompass.
Stakeholder interview with Cinch Factory Store Lead, Brandi Brady.
Additional qualitative research was conducted inside the Cinch Factory Store, where I was able to chat with a wide array of customers, asking them questions regarding their online vs in-store shopping behaviors, consumer goals, and any pain points. Working within the Cinch Factory Store for the last two years, I was able to use my background knowledge and experience of helping customers shop in various retail settings along with questioning my store associates on their customer observations to further validate my research findings.
In store customer questioning with Rene, a pipeline welder.
Lastly, we were granted access to Cinchjeans.com Google analytics which offered in-depth insights on everything from new vs. returning customer, time spent on page, demographics, amount of money spent, and organic search vs direct path. It was really exciting to be see all of this collected data and learn how to analyze it. The Google analytics were extremely useful to further explore the customer’s online shopping journey and clearly see where there was room for opportunity and improvement.
USER INSIGHTS
Affinity diagram built in Lucid Chart.
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
Notes derived from the stakeholder and user interviews resulted in a few key categories used to create our affinity diagram. Company goals included the hope for slow, steady growth year of year while continuing to offer the highest quality (and innovative) clothing that aligns with their customer bases’ needs. CINCH JEANS’ unique selling point of offering a very wide variety of apparel for everyone and ever lifestyle blends into the user pain point segment, where customers often to struggle to understand the certain fit, style and function of items.
Key findings from Cinchjeans.com Google Analytics.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
*80% of virtual Cinch consumers seek quality and durable clothing using a mobile device with 51% of overall users finding the Cinch Jeans website through an organic search. However, on average only three and a half minutes are spent on cinchjeans.com lending to the inference that shoppers have a specific item in mind or leave the site without making a purchase. A Cinch mobile app would be a successful tool in order to increase return customer traffic, better inform online purchasing decisions and to support business to business relationships.
*Cinch Jeans Google Analytics 2020
USER AND STORYBOARD
User Persona created in Figma.
With our user in mind and the research results and company goals on hand, our proto-persona evolved into our flushed out user-persona of Kisha Smith. Kisha is a 3rd generation rodeo athlete, extremely steeped in the western culture. She is also young and very tech savvy, which she relies on heavily for her western clothing and supply needs. She wants to look good and feel confident in her online purchase decisions.
User Storyboard built in Figma.
We walked Kisha through this real life scenario of quickly having to find and replace a women’s western shirt for an upcoming rodeo. Kisha works her way through this storyboard utilizing our new product, the Cinch Jeans mobile app. Having this scene play out helped us better relate to our user and her situation, along with offering a better understanding of how we can alleviate e-commerce pain points.
PROTOTYPES
PAPER SKETCHES
In order to quickly visualize our concepts, paper sketches done, taking pre-existing content from the Cinch website and customizing it to fit a responsive iPhone 11 viewport. I wanted begin conceptualizing what the home page would look like with it’s new card layout and hamburger menu options. We spent a long time reworking the Information Architecture of the content, re-categorizing content and clothing collections for clarity.
LO-FI WIREFRAMES
From paper to pixel, our sketches evolved into more of a mid-fi where we really began to add in much requested features that users touched on during interviews, such as a notification option for new arrivals and sales, along with more space to add relevant content about particular products.
USER TESTING
We tested early and often on all stages of our designs. Mid-fi testing revealed some great feedback for iterations. Some notes included re-analyzing taxonomy for better user understanding, increased icon size and spacing to avoid accidental taps, and overall UI placement positioning.
HI-FI MOBILE PROTOTYPE
With some final edits, we presented our final Cinch Jeans mobile app prototype. Playing through the video tutorial, users and stakeholders alike can view the following:
App tile on an IPhone 11 viewport
Push notification pop up for new arrivals/sales
Scrollable home screen with cards
Icon menu at bottom for quick access
Hamburger menu below newly spaced out top icons
Further expandable menu to easily find categories
Consistent hero imagery
List sort and filter system
Product ratings and reviews, additional photos, and more thorough descriptions
Retail store availability lookup by GPS or zip code manual entry
Convenient store calling capabilities from directly from app
CONCLUSION
Meg and I became passionate about working on a product that could deliver on strong research directly from Cinch consumers that would have a big impact on their shopping experiences. Future app considerations that are backed by our research and were brought to light, would include more inclusive content and imagery, an accompanying Cinch Jeans website redesign, augmented reality fitting rooms and translation accessibility for international customers.