Project Type
Coursework
Role
User Research, Interviewing, Surveying, Usability Testing
Duration
Jan-Mar 2024
Overview
As part of my research methods course, our group conducted a research project aimed at understanding young adults' challenges when getting rid of unwanted clothing. With the rise of fast fashion and the wide range of clothing options available, many young adults need help deciding what to do with their excess clothing items.
Our team conducted interviews, a survey, and a usability test to examine this dilemma. We specifically looked at the clothing disposal process using the Salvation Army's website as our primary resource. Our goal was to identify the positive and negative aspects of young adults' clothing disposal experiences and provide recommendations to improve efficiency in managing clothing.
Study Goals
Goal #1
Identify the motivations and pain points young adults face when disposing of unwanted clothing.
Goal #2
Understand the factors influencing their decision-making process.
Goal #3
Provide recommendations for improving the disposal process.
Research Questions
RQ #1
Why do young adults sell versus donate clothing?
RQ #2
What could make it easier for young people to sustainably get rid of clothing they no longer need?
RQ #3
How do young adults go about deciding to keep or get rid of their clothing?
Major Insights
‣ Young adults prefer to donate unwanted clothing as opposed to any other method of disposal.
‣ Nostalgia is a common emotion that young adults experience when going through old clothes and is one of the main reasons they choose to hold onto items.
‣ The inconvenience and effort required to get rid of clothing were the main deterring factors for young adults.
‣ Financial gain was found to be one of the least influential reasons behind our target audience’s decision to get rid of unwanted clothing.
‣ Making the donation process more clear and convenient would yield higher rates of donation among young adults.
Interviews
We conducted interviews with three participants remotely to understand the experiences and challenges of young adults when disposing of unwanted clothing. We aimed to explore their preferences, emotional attachments, and behaviors surrounding clothing disposal, specifically regarding donation and selling.
Major Findings
‣ Two out of three participants preferred donating unwanted clothing over selling.
‣ All participants acknowledged emotional attachment to certain clothing items, which they perceived as a potential challenge to parting with them.
‣ All participants cited convenience and altruistic motives as reasons for favoring donation.
‣ Two participants admitted they had never sold clothing, indicating a preference for donation.
‣ All participants were willing to consider alternative disposal methods if they were more convenient or less time-consuming.
Surveys
In order to triangulate our research, we administered a 10-question survey to 31 participants to bolster our interview findings and touch on potential gaps left unanswered. A variety of questions were presented to the participants, with the major themes of the questions being: motivations, emotional valence, and other factors that contributed to the process of getting rid of clothes. We also gave participants the opportunity to share how they felt the process could be alleviated.
Major Findings
‣ 74% of the participants identified time and effort as the most important determining factor for how they dealt with clothing.
‣ Participants indicated they felt significantly more positive about donating clothing than selling.
‣ Participants felt that the process was normally confusing and inconvenient.
‣ Participants suggested that increasing donation locations and pickup services would simplify the process.
‣ Majority of participants rarely dealt with old clothes, but when they did the main three reasons they got rid of clothing were it being worn out, not fitting, or having too many articles.
‣ Participants' focused firstly on how easy the process would be.
‣ When emotions were present, they primarily felt sentimental and nostalgic about getting rid of clothing.
Personas
With our data, we formed three unique personas with storyboards to describe our main audiences: the emotionally overwhelmed, the quickly and easiest as possible, and the environmentally conscious. We decided to additionally create journey maps to help give shape to our understanding of user needs. Given our findings that time and effort are the most important factor in determining what to do with the clothing, we centered our journey maps on the quickly and easiest as possible persona.
Usability Testing
We conducted three remote moderated usability tests with three users representative of our target population. After our preliminary research, we chose to use the Salvation Army’s website for our usability testing, with a specific focus on their donation pick-up service.
Major Findings
‣ Participants found it useful to have the readily available text boxes to enter their zip codes for the most common uses of the site.
‣ Participants expressed confusion that some drop-off locations did not all have the same set of information (i.e., some locations had their hours listed and others did not.)
‣ Two-thirds of participants found the map to be confusing and not very responsive.
‣ Participants felt that the site’s purpose was communicated well through the homepage.
‣ Participants expressed appreciation for the simplicity of the site.
‣ All participants found it difficult to find information regarding accepted donation items and one was unsuccessful in the task.
‣ All participants found it easy to successfully schedule a pickup.
Recommendations
Given our choice to test the Salvation Army’s website, the majority of our recommendations are geared toward the improvement of this experience, rather than suggesting the creation of a new one.
Future Design
‣ Presenting drop-off location content consistently with the same information and form across all available locations to lower cognitive stress of the user.
‣ Create a defined list of accepted donation items and make it easily accessible to give users more certainty in their actions.
‣ Solidify a design style for navigation with menu items, call-to-action buttons, and links to ensure interaction between the site’s many pages is consistent and easy to understand.
Future Research
‣ A card sort study to determine the optimal information architecture for users to flow through the experience of donating online more easily. A careful focus should be given to the menu options and structure of navigation.
‣ Further usability testing to test the effectiveness of various call-to-action and link designs on user success rate and visit time.
‣ Field studies to see exactly how participants go through the process of getting rid of clothing behind closed doors, with the goal of improving current methods or introducing new donation options.