ASOS create festival app in record time using start-up model
ASOS
The Challenge
Define requirements and design an app in less than one month
ASOS is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer for 20-somethings selling cutting-edge ‘fast fashion’ and offering a wide variety of related content. ASOS.com sells over 80,000 branded and own-brand products around the world through localised mobile and web experiences.
The start-up model within large organisations is becoming ever popular. Small, dedicated teams work together to create new products to support innovation and continuously learn. ASOS wanted to test its vision with a new product – an app called ‘Who’s Going?’ This would target fashion conscious festival-goers and enable them to search, choose and plan their festival trips with friends, and then offer complementary fashion and accessories.
Not a festival or music brand, ASOS was stepping into new territory. They consequently needed help clarifying the user goals and types of features this app would need. UX Connections was tasked with defining and designing the app – in less than one month.
The Solution
Customer research, an interactive prototype and some super speedy workmanship!
The project group included two product owners, a graphic designer, marketing manager and project manager. The timelines were incredibly tight, meaning it was imperative that we created a roadmap for delivery as early into the project as possible. But first, we needed to define the deliverables.
The first days were spent understanding the features and functionality matrix and gaining approval from stakeholders as to what was in and out of scope. This meant working with a long list of requirements, documents, sketches and receiving on-going feedback. Other key milestones were creating and conducting a user research survey, and wireframing and building an interactive prototype in Axure.
There were many challenges in this project, not least the time. The ASOS marketing department told us at short notice that they were unable to conduct the customer research for us during their peak season in December. So we came up with a cost-effective way to gather key insights from our festivalgoer audience while relieving pressure at this critical time of year. Through a Facebook survey we were able to specifically target our demographic based on relevant profiles and behavior. This could be based on a user’s ‘likes’, age, gender etc.
Additional work surfaced throughout too, including the need for high-level page design of the prototype. In just over a week however we were ready for a full review of the prototype complete with a detailed definition, feasibility assessments and designs; a complete package that could be taken to developers for accurate cost-estimates to build.
The Results
A fully specced app ready for developers.
In just 17 days UX Connections delivered the wireframes and fully interactive prototype of the ‘Who’s Going?’ app with which developers could hit the ground running.
The uncertainty surrounding this brief is typical of a start-up project. Significant guidance of what the deliverables should be tied to relevant research, as well as providing the deliverables themselves, was necessary. Short time frames due to budget and resource limitations were also a factor that we had to take into consideration to accommodate the client.
Working with Chris (UX Connections) was a pleasure. He came up with a very innovative, but practical and detailed design solutions that not only answered our brief but pushed it in a way we hadn’t ourselves though of, and which ultimately resulted in a product which was a delight for our users.
Vicky Fox, Art Director, ASOS
Loved working with Chris. Have tried to replicate his processes with each UX task that I’ve played a part of ever since. Easy to work with and full of creative input too. Keen to get him involved in my future projects.
Will Chapman, Product Owner & Entrepreneur, ASOS, Who’s Going and Want My Bet
