Bringing social media insiders into the ASOS experience

What
Hackathon, UX, UI, Prototyping, Interaction
When
October 2019
The Hackathon Brief
The central theme of the hackathon was based around incorporating social media into the current ASOS experience. Despite their enormous following on Instagram and other social media platforms, there was an opportunity to implement a social media presence to bring it away from a standard e-commerce platform.
Elevating ASOS Insiders within the app
As a team, we decided to focus on the relatively unknown group of ASOS Insiders. Insiders are essentially the social media influencers of ASOS, each with a distinct Instagram profile where they show off their latest clothing trends and style tips. Each Insider had a strong following on Instagram, however, these personalised style feeds were nowhere to be seen on the ASOS app.
Introducing The Insider Feed
We had the idea to match customer profiles to these Insiders, allowing their styles (and specific ASOS products) to be served to customers who have similar taste. These customer profiles would be based on past purchases, saved items, search history and favourite brands. As the sole designer in the group, I was tasked with envisioning how the feed would be integrated into the app. This involved quickly sketching wireframes and translating them to high-fidelity designs using the ASOS design system. The resulting concept was a personalised stream of products that would be continually updated as new social media posts were created.
Using Instagram images as the first image on the ASOS product page
Adding authenticity through imagery
Considering the Insider Feed utilises Instagram posts, we also had the idea to serve the specific Instagram image (showing the product) as the first product image. So instead of maintaining the consistent grey-background studio aesthetic, we could break up the listing experience and show the product in a more authentic and realistic manner. It's worth noting that the Instagram image would still be supported by the studio photos.
You're All Caught Up!
The idea was to continuously engage and entice customers with the latest insider styles. I designed the 'You're All Caught Up' prompt to give users a clear message saying they're up to date, whilst simultaneously encouraging them to check back later and engage with the latest style trends. In addition, a large clickable CTA on the home screen has a 'seen' and 'new' state, subtly directing the user to review their personalised Insider Feed.
The 'you're all caught up' message on the insider feed
Top 3 insider rankings as carousels on the insider feed
Your Insider rankings
I wanted to allow users to see their top three Insider matches, as well as be able to switch to a general feed to scroll through. On the carousel view of the feed, the user is shown their top three ASOS Insiders. The products that these Insiders wear and promote correspond the closest to the specific customers past purchases, saved items and search history. With that being said, a customer can click into a particular insider and view the matched styles and brands.
On reflection
We came 2nd place in the Hackathon competition for this concept. We wanted to bring our relatively unknown insiders into the app experience and utilise their social media consistency and output to create a continuous feed that would increase levels of engagement within the app. As of June 2020, ASOS began showing product images that were not shot within the photoshoot studios (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), bringing a breath of fresh air to listing and product pages.
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