Uniqlo is an enormously popular clothing brand, and is one of Asia's biggest clothing retailers. However when it comes to their mobile app, the user experience is lacking and difficult, and has met the complaints of many users. For such a successful store, with many loyal followers, it deserves a high-quality app.
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Problems: A quick look at the reviews in the App Store reveal what users are frustrated by the most.
1. The cart function. The app oddly reroutes the user to their website when wanting to view their cart, which cannot reroute you back to the app. This becomes an issue when users want to see the items in their cart, as many users report glitches, resulting in their cart items being lost.
2. Browsing and navigation. One reviewer claimed the browsing experience was "agonizing" due to the messy format. Many users reported the website having a better navigation experience.
3. Layout. Users describe the layout of the app as too busy to use, resulting in a bad experience.

Problem statement and Research

Phase I

Aug 2017

Current App Layout: Flow and Problems

Old App

As we can see, the homepage is cluttered with information. Furthermore, the category page is located in the middle of the homepage, meaning the user will have to scroll through the homepage in order to find the categories. This leads to confusion, and many users have complained about this based on the app reviews.

User testing

I asked multiple users to complete a series of simple tasks to determine how fast they could complete them, and also ask what difficulties they faced.

Tasks:

1. You're looking for a couple of shirts for the summer, navigate your way through the app and choose accordingly and add to your cart.
2. You see a few items you like, but do not want to purchase yet, add those items to your wishlist
3. Continue to check out, do you run into any difficulties?

Results

1. All users experienced some difficulty navigating
2. When choosing a category, a list of promotional ads is shown first, rather than the category options, distracting the user.
3. The checkout experience was fairly straightforward, but value could be increased.

Comparison Matrix

ASOS, Urban Outfitters, H&M and Nordstrom's apps are all praised with high ratings for having an easy and fluid experience. Viewing successful shopping apps we can draw some common successful UI/UX patterns
1. Simplicity: Free of clutter and unnecessary information
2. User friendly-ness: Clean and consistent
3. Giving users the appropriate amount of freedom to browse their clothes, while simultaneous guiding the user to make the experience stress free.
4. Painless checkout experience

Information Architecture

I split the app up into four different tabs, this way, the user flow is massively improved, and users can navigate the app to find what they want.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Final Screens

The Shopping Experience

To improve the shopping experience I made multiple decisions. First I changed the home screen by making it more organized and functional - so users are able to freely browse the collection without becoming overwhelmed. I kept the color scheme original to the brand, which is mostly red, however I decided to limit the use of this color, as it is harsh on the eyes of the user.
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Second, I created a separate tab for the shopping categories, so users can easily search and find items as they need - in the old iteration, the category section could be found at the bottom of the homepage. Not only did this crowd the page, but it interrupted the flow.
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Third, I simplified the clothing display page, while retaining the information needed. Uniqlo is known for their simple clothing, which often comes in many colors, so it was important to have the colors displayed outright

Checkout

Redoing the checkout experience was more straightforward. Through the user profile, users can access their account settings, coupons, and order history.

Uniqlo Mobile redesign