Apparel Audit Redesign
Enabling fast audits on old and slow android tablets
A factory floor is a busy place. Delay costs money, and reworking a failed batch of garments leads to huge losses. An accurate and fast audit is essential to ensure that the garments meet the quality standards of the brands, and that the factory is operating efficiently.
Clothing brands audit their factories by sampling batches and checking for defects. The batch is PASSED or FAILED based on its Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) — ratio of good vs bad apparels, shoes or accessories.
Overview
TIMELINE
May 2020 to Sep 2020 (Start of COVID in India)
MY ROLE
End-to-End Experience Designer and Owner
Research, UX Design, Visual Design, Prototype, Usability Tests
TEAM
1 Product Manager, 1 Subject expert, 6 Engineers
WORKED WITH FOLKS FROM
India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia
Design process and research
Design Research during the pandemic
Semi Structured Interviews and Think Aloud Exercise (Remote)
Due to pandemic-related factory closures I couldn't easily reach my end users - brand auditors and factory managers. So, I conducted semi-structured interviews with sales and integration teams to identify user motivations, concerns, and usability opinions.
I then performed usability testing using think-aloud exercises and validated the findings with our in-house expert.
Contextual Inquiry (Remote)
Luckily, I had visited a few apparel factories in India before the pandemic, but I wanted to conduct contextual inquiry to account for any geographic, tech or cultural differences.Since traveling to the factories was not an option, I settled for video calls and recorded videos to observe the audit process, the items auditors interacted with, and usability issues with tablets.
I had mostly worked on B2C or E-commerce before this project.
To get started, I had to learn a lot about the apparel manufacturing industry and its processes.
Technical and daunting, but fun! ✌🏽
Auditors in the production line
Defects identified during the audit of a Line displayed in real-time
A Sewing Line in an Indonesian Factory floor
Photo by Rio Lecatompessy
Dashboard showing the health and status of a Line
Customer steps and actions
