SWISH
Comprehensive application design:
safeguarding our future and wardrobes through blockchain innovation
Swish helps users to safely and securely buy, sell and protect their clothing within the second hand cloths market. Swish services are inline with the 2020 EU Green Deal to promote circularity, sustainability and transparency within the fashion industry. This deal will be implemented in 2026. Swish achieves this by using blockchain technology to provide incorruptible open access information to both users and fashion brands.
Background
The apparel, footwear, and accessories resale market has nearly tripled in size since 2020 with an estimated value between $100 to $120 billion worldwide. Surveys show that sustainability is an increasing driving force for purchasing second-hand clothing.
The problem
Competition in resale platforms is rapidly increasing. Conversely the primary market has seen a decrease in sales and needs to develop strategies to compete within this booming resale market.
Competitor analysis
Competitor
Summary
Second hand market app for everyone.
“trend” led app that focuses on a younger urban “London” audience.
High end luxury fashion items for a high net worth audience.
Second hand market app for an older mature audience.
Authentification
Quality
Price tracking
Research
Pain points and motivations for using the secondary market was identified for both users and fashion brands.
KEY FINDINGS
Users want
Accurate Information
All of the items information could exist on a passport registered on a blockchain ledger.
Clothing Traceability
Clothing passports could document the items history.
Quick Selling
Passports would contain all of the items metadata needed to sell the item easily.
Fashion brands
No Blockchain Integration
All of the items information could exist on the blockchain ledger and so it would be incorruptible.
Second-hand Market Access
The blockchain passport would give brands life long access to the owners of their items.
Damaged by Inauthentic Items
Brand authenticity would be guaranteed through the unique QR code registered on the blockchain.
Personas
Shoppers want incorruptible, traceable information that they can easily digest and use to make reassured and well considered consumer decisions.
Blockchain technology integration
Swish uses a phones camera to scan the QR code attached to the clothing item. Users are prompted to open Swish which enables them to register the item on the blockchain and claim its digital passport.
The solution
Clothing passports
PRIMARY FEATURES
Blockchain technology integration
Top fashion brands Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Cartier are starting to tag their products with unique QR codes that can be entered onto the blockchain.
Simple e-commerce
The blockchain ledger offers full transparency of the items selling price history. An automated suggested price is then generated and optionally selected.
Secondhand market access
Brands are able to update the items passport, giving them access to second hand market users, whilst the privacy of the items owner is maintained.
SECONDARY FEATURES
Geolocation tracking
Trace the items movement around the world.
Warehouse manufacturing operations
Authentication of sustainable raw materials.
Passport movement
Digital passport creation
Digital passport ownership
Digital passport in the market place
Transferring digital passport
Wireframes + User flows
BUYING
SELLING
RECEIVING
ONBOARDING
High fidelity design
After I integrated clothing passports and blockchain technology into a secondary cloths market I then began to create the high fidelity designs and a prototype. At this stage I revisited my user research key findings to ensure that my designs addressed these critical points.
Users can “Make an offer” on an item with guaranteed knowledge of how much the item has previously been sold for by looking at its blockchain passports traced resale history.
Users are encourage to recycle their clothing through a highly efficient design that makes it easy to enter a new passport into their wallet or upload an item and its metadata onto the market.
While users are brought onboard, they are simultaneously educated on the key aspects of blockchain technology.
Fashion brands can be fully integrated into the second hand market, by giving their clothing items unique QR codes that can be scanned with Swish, to generate unique passports on the blockchain. Brands will be able to update these passports with any information necessary thus connecting them to secondary market whilst retaining the anonymity of the shopper.
Revisions
The QR code scanner button was labelled to help make it more identifiable for users to add clothing to their wallet.
An instruction on how to add a passport to the wallet was also included.
The word “wallet” was added to the address check out information enabling users to identify what the address was for.
The “+” add wardrobe button was placed next to the word "wardrobe" to increase their association.
The sell button and an additional three tasks from the user flow that were no longer relevant were removed. Users now simply select the item they want to sell and then continue to move through the flow.
The naming of the edit buttons were changed to differentiate them from the buttons that were available when selling the item. i.e. When editing an item, "Sell" was changed to "Save" and "Cancel" was changed to "Delete listing". This change in buttons will help to guide the user when editing their listing.
By highlighting the historical sale that is being represented on the map, users are more easily able to make the association between the information and the location on the map.
Conclusion
The incorruptible ledger of blockchain technology has not gone unnoticed by the fashion industry as they seek to meet the requirements of the EU Ecodesign regulations, continue to battle counterfeit items and the boom of the second hand market. The solutions provided by Swish give users and fashion brands the ability to help organise and recirculate these digital certificates / NFTs / passports and their physical items within a platform ready to support new EU regulation and a circular economy.
Reflections and next steps
If this project were to be further developed the next feature would be focused on users ability to create positive social media content via engaging wardrobe environmental impact statistics. The data would be collated from all the passports that they held. Lastly, a critical point to consider for the next stage, would be to ensure that the designs supported an open system approach with other blockchain technology.