Little Renters is a small subscription-based business that allows parents to rent and sell pre-loved children’s clothing.
The goal: to enhance the user experience and overall functionality of the website in order to increase conversion rates, encourage user engagement, and ensure satisfaction of parents looking to rent and sell children’s clothes.
Little Renters
Client
Date
Little Renters
1 Feb - 9 Mar 2024
Tools
Roles
Figma, Figjam, Slack, Miro
UX researcher, UI Designer
Market Research
Why do Australians choose to rent clothes?
According to UNSW consumer behaviour experts in 2020, the pre-loved children’s rental market is increasingly appealing to those who are conscious about sustainability.
A survey conducted with 1100 Australians by Statista May 2023 states that the highest reason for purchasing pre-loved clothes was to save money, support circular economy, and to afford luxury brands.
Competitor/Comparator Analysis
We looked at some Australian competitors which included The Gumnut Trade, Curious Kind, Numidan, Conscious Koala who operate with a rental model for children’s clothing.
As the Australian children’s rental clothing market is a growing industry we also looked at some international comparators; The Little Loop and Retykle, to identify where Little Renters sits in the market and to identify opportunities for improvement.
Clearly displays the brands they sell by adding logos
Clearly displays product offerings with individual images
Subscription details are vague - “4-6 items” may cause uncertainty in amount of items received
Savings and images of individual pieces are shown on PDP
Products are categorised and can be filtered by condition
‘How it works‘ steps are concise
Value proposition displayed on PDP
Subscription details are hidden and must be hovered over to reveal
Clear high-level points about business on home page
Selling steps are clear and concise
Key Takeaways for Opportunities
Display images of individual product offerings
Display brands that they sell
Display the value proposition of renting
Clarify how buying and selling works in concise steps
The Research
A heuristic evaluation was performed to identify areas of improvement on the website and content
31 user interviews were held with parents of children aged 10 years and under to understand their current shopping behaviours
Usability tests conducted by interviewees on the current website
Survey was distributed to networks of the interviewees, Facebook pages and library meetup groups
Interview Research Synthesis - What do parents currently do?
Shop from cheaper retailers to save money
Buy cheaper clothes as kids grow out of clothes quickly
Buy cheaper clothes as kids ruin clothes quickly
Buys materials that do not irritate kids
Buys kids clothes that are practical and can sustain washes
Buys clothes from stores to inspect quality and size
Browse online marketplaces to find cheap pre-loved clothes
Relies on friends and family for hand-me-downs
Receives unused clothes as gifts from friends
Survey Results - What do parents think about renting?
Users usually buy clothes in-store, online or receive hand-me-downs
80% responded ‘not likely to rent clothes‘
70% responded that their concern with renting clothes is hygiene
75% of people responded that they are more likely to rent clothes if it saved costs
See survey results here.
Meet our Persona, Vanessa (or so we thought)
Vanessa’s Journey
She is a practical mum that needs to acquire kids clothes quickly, easily and affordably
Browses online at cheap retailers for day-to-day clothes
Purchases them online using the size guides which she finds inaccurate
Receives incorrectly sized clothes and is dissatisfied
Vanessa is an Unlikely Customer
Vanessa prioritises costs before brands
She needs accurate sizes - difficult to address at the current stage of Little Renters as different brands of clothing may be sized differently
When ideating, we found it difficult to address Vanessa’s needs with a solution that would be inexpensive and easily implemented by Little Renters
Back to the Drawing Board
We looked back at our research and saw that there may be a secondary persona that we can extract
There were significant groupings for parents who:
1. Cared about sustainability
2. Were concerned about the hygiene of rented clothes
Meet our New Persona - Lisa
About Lisa
She is interested in the idea of pre-loved clothes however is deterred by the thought of hygiene if the clothes are not from family and friends
She is concerned about paying for damages for rented clothes
Lisa’s needs for reassurance could be addressable in this project scope
Defining the Problem
Lisa needs reassurance of cleaning practices so that she can safely provide quality rented clothes for her children
This ties in with our assumption map where we identified health risks as a possible important unknown
70% of people surveyed and 25% of interviewees voiced concerns about hygiene as a deterrent for renting clothes for their children
Reassuring clients about hygiene may result in greater than 25% increase in conversion of renters who would have otherwise left the Little Renters website
How Might We reassure Lisa of cleaning practices of rented clothes?
We came up with 24 possible ideas and landed on 2 solutions:
Place cleaning guarantee on Home Page
Mention hygiene and cleaning practices wherever information about rent is displayed - Home Page, How It Works Page, Rent PDP
Cleaning Up Content & Content Hierarchy
In order to increase conversion rates, we wanted to decrease the time it takes for users to read and understand how the business works and what the value proposition is.
Repeated information
How it Works content for steps is lengthy
Extra Rent Page is unnecessary if all info is already on How it Works page
PDP description is lengthy and took users a long time to read through
Users still felt the need to navigate to FAQ page to get all answers
Make How it Works steps more concise and to-the-point
Cut down on big paragraphs of information that is not essential to understand how the business works
Remove the Rent Page to reduce the amount of repeated information and reduce amount of steps to reach conversion
Key Changes
Sticking to Standards - Design Insipiration
In order to follow best practices and validate content changes we performed a second competitor/comparator analysis by looking to established online businesses that rent or sell children’s clothes.
These businesses’ features were used for inspiration to create our paper prototypes to be tested with users.
Home Page - Cleaning Guarantee
No competitors displayed their cleaning practices outright
Curious Kind mentioned they used the brand Dirt in their FAQ
We used the clean and modern aesthetic of the website as inspiration for a carousel on the Home Page
Home Page - Subscription Table
Inspired by Rent the Runway’s subscription table
Added a table to immediately address price, no. of items, shipping and cleaning terms
How it Works Page - FAQ
Inspired by Rent the Runway’s FAQ placement
Moved FAQ to the How it Works page so further info is available on the same page - limit clicking back and forth
Rent and Sell info moved to How it Works page so it is all in the same place
How it Works Page - Sell Information
Usability tests showed that users were unsure of what brands were accepted as it was hidden in a small link
Our persona is also someone who cares about style and quality brands
Inspired by The Gumnut Trade, we added a section to show what brands are accepted
Rent PDP - Image Changes
From usability tests 5 out of 8 users said they would feel more reassured if they were able to see some clothes opened up instead of folded
Inspired by Conscious Koala and Curious Kind, we added images of clothes opened up
Rent PDP - Subscription Details
Our market research showed that 70% of Australians buy pre-loved to save money
Inspired by The Little Loop, we added a value proposition by stating the RRP to indicate savings made
We also reiterated clothes can be swapped any time, free shipping and no charges for stains in this section
Paper Prototype Usability Test
Task: Show me how you would rent on the Little Renters current website
Current Website
Time taken to complete task: 2min 44sec avg.
Paper Prototype
Time taken to complete task: 1min 27 sec avg.
Accessibility Considerations
We looked at some main features of the website that may not be accessible to users with visual impairments and made some suggestions for Little Renters.
The Logo is white which disappears on the website when any menu items are clicked on
Users were confused at how to go back to home page
Main CTAs and headings did not pass accessibility tests
Testing Again - Paper to Hi-Fidelity Prototype
Main Ideation - Cleaning Guarantee
Initial ideation was a carousel, however we couldn’t guarantee users will click through it
We decided to place a separate cleaning guarantee on the Home Page instead
Rent PDP - Subscription Details
From our usability tests, users were not clear from paper prototype that it was a subscription
Labelled the table on the PDP ‘Subscribe and Save’
Added ‘$50/month’ to reiterate it is a subscription
Testing Hi-Fidelity Prototype
How it Works Page - FAQs
Having the FAQ above the CTA actually stalled users from clicking through - moved CTA above FAQs
For the PDP, users were under the impression that clothing images were what they will receive - clarified in PDP description that it is only an example of what will be received
Hi-Fidelity Prototype Usability Test
Task: Show me how you would rent on the Little Renters current website
Paper Prototype: 1min 27 sec avg.
Hi-Fi Prototype: 1min 09 sec avg.
Objective: to assess and enhance the user experience and overall functionality of the website in order to increase conversion rates and encourage user engagement to ensure satisfaction of parents looking to rent and sell children’s clothes.
Final Prototype
Home Page
Condensed information into digestible infographics and tables
Improve accessibility by increasing contrast of copy and button text
Improve conversion rates by addressing hygiene concerns with cleaning guarantee on home page
How it Works Page
Consolidated Rent and Sell information to one page with FAQs included
Increase add to cart rate with Rent information and CTA at top of page
Added images and zoom feature to increase reassurance of quality
Product information contains only essential information about the package
Added value proposition to convey costs that customers would save if they rent instead of buying from stores
Rent Page
Next Steps
Key objectives for Little Renters included assessing user satisfaction and identifying opportunities for improvements on current site, both relevant to the business goal of increasing conversion rates.
The following next steps will allow Little Renters to further asses opportunities for user engagement and satisfaction on the website once the above content and ideation suggestions have been implemented.
Heat map on website to see where users are bouncing
Track user satisfaction with follow up surveys
Compare conversion rates before and after UI update
Refine pain points on site with further user interviews
Set up Google Analytics for customer journeys with rent and sell goals to view customer engagement
Reflection
Our collaborative and discussion-based approach to making decisions allowed us to ideate and produce a final result that we were proud of and it was great to receive exceptional feedback from our client Little Renters.
Key Learnings
Research is the most integral part and conducting thorough interviews and aligning the interview goals with team members is crucial
It is always good to express concerns with proper reasoning so each team member is heard allowing team members to look at the challenge from different angles
