Overview

In summer 2016 I’ve been working on a freelance project for Gore-Tex. Gore-Tex started digital initiatives for lean startup projects and outlined possible ideas to look into in a short MVP request brief. One of the ideas described a garment wash and care help app for their customers, as most of them didn’t know how to take care of the different outdoor gear.

As Gore-Tex is a huge supplier for hundreds of outdoor brands, they also didn’t have any real customer data and no direct channel to them.

Challenge

I had to come up with an idea of a gear care app, which actually is being used to provide data for Gore-Tex. Since Gore-Tex is used by many different outdoor brands, it also had to support an easy way of adding new gear regardless of the brand or shop. The process of adding new gear should be easy and fast for the customer. It was also a challenge to use the color scheme of the Gore-Tex brand.

Approach

At the beginning of the project it was necessary to find outdoor customers to validate ideas, pains and needs. I held several interviews and approached them with different ideas. Most of them showed no interest in a garment care app without any extra value. To understand them better I created a hooked model. By introducing a loyalty program most customers got interested.

This turned the idea of a garment care app to a gore-tex membership app with care instructions, but also with exclusive services, sponsored trips, gear suggestions and special discounts for new gear. I also created the customer journey for buying a new gear to find a solution for adding gear to the app easily.

Implementation

During the project I was responsible for the concept and ux/ui design process. I’ve created different prototypes for a first MVP from scribbles to wireframes and mockups. During the iterations I gathered feedback from customers and also from Gore-Tex as stakeholder. This helped to validate the ideas and also move forward with the MVP. To understand the user flows and get a better understanding of the app I also created a click dummy in Marvel.

Furthermore I also explored the possibilities of the loyalty program and how the business model would look like.