Can UX designers learn from the fashion industry?

Last week, in Dublin, I had the pleasure of meeting the expert in the international fashion business @KARL NAINANI. We were talking about how a UX driven design approach could benefit fashion and luxury brands and we realised there were so many things to talk about.

While researching the topic, I fell in love with the approach of Ralph Lauren’s digital UX designer Regine Gilbert in her article "Approaching UX Design with a fashion designers eye" which compared the UX design process with the fashion design process:

"Like the process of UX design, fashion design is iterative and goes through many phases before you're ready to get it to your user or customer"

Online platforms as an extension of the offline experience

There are a bunch of good articles about UX for fashion and luxury brands that analyse websites and apps of high-end brands. Every article agrees that having a great user experience is essential for the success of an online store.

Deeply understanding the fashion and luxury buyer's mindset and customer journey are important facts to design a great experience. According to "The Global Luxury Customer Journey", a study by HavaasLuxHub, luxury brand customers are willing to pay more if they are provided with better, customized, meaningful experiences and services while they approach, select and purchase a luxury product. Isabelle Harvie-Watt, Global CEO of Havas LuxHub, says:

“Brands, particularly the traditional luxury fashion brands, need to shift their focus to their customers and on how to engage them. They need to know their data; they need to understand their customer; they need to be global yet increasingly local and personalized in their approach; they need to become much more digital but at the same time experiential."

Luxury clothing retailer Burberry, for example, has been adding technology to their customer journey for a while. They've been doing great in social media and in e-commerce strategies with expectation that it will drive a third of their revenue growth over the coming three years.

"For many years we’ve been early adopters in digital, investing throughout the business along all points of the customer journey. The next stage of our digital journey is to extend this digital prowess into true e-commerce leadership. E-commerce in the luxury sector is expected over the next few years, to continue to grow by a double-digit percentage each year and to be the fastest-growing segment of the market", said Burberry Chief Operating Officer, John Smith.

And when we think about fashion and luxury brands from the brick and mortar world, we should go beyond and think about the whole brand experience. Besides making sure that all brand elements are present on the website or app, the experience online should be an extension of the offline experience.

Check out the full article.