Using machine learning to make shopping fashion online more human — and body — centered
Learn how Zalando’s Size & Fit design team is integrating cutting-edge tech to serve meaningful customer needs.
Trying on clothing in the virtual space has been on every online shopper’s wish list since the birth of e-commerce. Have you ever dreamed of a time when, instead of relying on size charts and tape measures, you can simply let technology capture your measurements and tell you how an item will fit you? Those of us who have felt the frustration of expectation-versus-reality purchases have wondered when technology will advance enough to truly bridge the gap between the online and offline shopping experiences: combining choice and convenience with advanced personalization and attention to detail — all at a lower environmental impact. If you’ve been nodding along to all of this, then you’ll be thrilled to hear that a specialist team at Zalando are working on making all of this a reality.
Size & Fit at Zalando
Zalando’s interdisciplinary Size & Fit organization comprises product management, applied science, software engineering, business development, product analytics, and product design. In addition to Product Designers, a Content Designer, a User Researcher, and a 3D and Fashion Designer are embedded in the design team. Leveraging years of research and harnessing cutting-edge technology, Size & Fit is on a mission to transform the way we shop. By solving sizing issues, we can focus the conversation on fit, while deepening the customer relationship.
“I feel design is here to benefit people, and this is a really fascinating intersection of technology and humanity,” says Head of Product Design Jay Kaufmann. “We have such an intimate relationship with our bodies and the way clothes represent our identities, so this is a great opportunity to help people in a very human-centered way. We’re also an enabler, a platform that helps brands and customers come together. Removing sizing issues as a friction point for customers is not just good for customers but good for the planet. The potential of fewer size-related returns to significantly reduce CO2 emissions plays into Zalando’s sustainability effort.”
A body measurement breakthrough
At the center of this human-centered innovation is the advanced body measurement technology Zalando acquired with the Zurich-based software company Fision. The Size & Fit design team is evolving it for the Zalando app, generating associated size advice algorithms, and building a seamless experience around carefully collected customer insights. In the not-too-distant future, customers will be able to capture their measurements with the Zalando app, from which Zalando can generate even more nuanced algorithmic size advice.
“You don’t have to stress with the size charts, you don’t have to do any guesswork; we’ll tell you,” says Senior Product Designer Maria de la Riva. “The app walks you through a sequence of steps that, by capturing two pictures, generate your body measurements without the images leaving the device. Then you can go back to the shopping experience and pick the right size.” This feature will also be incorporated into “Your sizes,” a profile that houses all of the tooling we currently use to help customers find the right fit, including reference items and fit feedback.
The team is also experimenting with sharing the first glimpses of new 3D visualizations with the customer. Future virtual fitting room experiences will not only help customers see if an item fits, but how it fits — allowing them to make more informed purchase decisions.
Designing and engineering this experience has required a great deal of fine-tuning. 3D and Fashion Designer Marianne Schoch shared that one of the most curious things about creating the virtual avatar is that, just like in real life, if the clothing pattern is not set up quite right, wrinkles can appear in the virtual outfit: “It was funny to see. I thought it would be easier in digital, but in the end, you see the same difficulties as in analog product development.”
By fully integrating home-grown technology — rather than tacking on a third-party service — Zalando is aiming to become the market leader in Size & Fit innovation. “There is nobody doing this at the scale of Zalando, a multi-brand fashion store serving tens of millions of people,” enthuses Senior Product Designer Davi Magalhaes. “It’s a very exciting challenge to work on.”
Shaped by the customer
Size is a sensitive topic. One thing the team clarified during the discovery and exploration phase of this project is that hardly anyone considers their body to be “normal,” and that our perceived differences are often at the top of our minds. “When we were testing how to display the measurements to our customers,” Agnieszka Magdalena Winczakiewicz, Size & Fit’s Senior User Researcher, tells us, “the first thing they did was look for difficult areas.”
It’s no secret that many people don’t feel comfortable with (some aspect of) their body, a feeling that can be heightened by any reflection — digital or otherwise — of ourselves we don’t like. “Our research has dug deep into how we can avoid being like an unflattering mirror or bad lighting, and instead, just be helpful,” Maria adds. “We want to make sure that, at every step, we do no harm.”
To ensure the body measurement experience is not only positive, but inclusive, the team is integrating animated illustrations. “We didn’t want to favor any particular body shape, so we opted to build very abstract genderless illustrations,” says Maria. “They push away from anything that is too recognizable while still being identifiable as a body.”
Another resistance point the team identified was the need for the user to find a suitable environment and to pose in tight clothing. However, the clear benefit of accurate size advice proved to help users overcome their initial reservations. To deliver on Zalando’s strong privacy promises, body measurements will be calculated within the customer’s device. Only depersonalized data will be sent to the cloud — and the images will even be deleted from the customer’s device. Engaging instructional material, including vocal prompts and videos, will be included to add ease and enjoyment to the experience — another feature that has never been done before at Zalando.
“This technology is new, and therefore we only get one chance to do it right,” says Agnieszka. “We don’t have any reference points, so we have to create a very nice and cool experience from the start. We have to nail it.” As Principal Product Designer Esin Isik asserts, for designers, that means being resourceful and comfortable with ambiguity: “Luckily, this is where I thrive as a designer, so I found my fit with this topic and technology.”
Styling a seamless experience
The new Size & Fit technology is too revolutionary to be kept to one corner of the Zalando website or app. The team is working on integrating it throughout the entire customer journey by designing a range of entry and exit points. “We have to encourage people to engage with a time-consuming process that takes them out of the shopping experience,” Davi tells us. “How can we explain the value they will get out of it, and do it in a way that’s helpful, transparent, and smooth overall? After the customer completes the body measurement, where do we take them after that, and what changes in the fashion store because of that?”
It’s a huge challenge, considering the incredibly complex ecosystem of the Zalando fashion store. That’s why Size & Fit is collaborating with other design teams in order to come up with solutions that benefit each organization’s customer experience vision and business considerations. Another big challenge is that the “dance between data science and design,” as Jay puts it, makes the design process unique and brilliantly complex. “It’s not a linear design flow,” Davi explains. “It’s very reliant on data and algorithms, and there are multiple things that can happen in the customer journey. It’s a very different way to design.”
Leading with empathy
Ask any of Size & Fit’s talents what excites them the most about working on this project and they’ll respond with positive customer impact. This human-centered innovation not only has the potential to improve the user’s experience, but to bring them true value. “Size-related experiences in fashion are loaded with emotions,” says Esin. “With our design and technology, it is possible to create experiences of pride, comfort, and peace, rather than negativity around bodies and clothes. I love being able to bring my empathy and creativity to the intersection of such a complex problem. To contribute to the solutions, I have to understand how the industry works, but also on a very personal level, how people select the clothes they buy, in which context they do that, and how they relate to their bodies when they find their fit.”
Are you fascinated by human-centered design, and excited by complex problems? Size & Fit is ready to welcome another Principal Product Designer to their team.
