Project Aghaaz

Overview

Aghaaz is a student-led enterprise. It focuses on sustainable fashion by upcycling waste into marketable clothing products and accessories. We collaborated with three semi-skilled rural woman to produce products and increase our social impact.

Aghaaz initially featured a lineup of 12 products; however, the popularity of two particular items resulted in an excess of leftover stock for most others and a slower sale velocity.Through logs of customer feedback we realised that although our customers resonated with our mission, their satisfaction was tempered by concerns regarding design choices and pricing.In response to customer feedback and to broaden the range of choices, we embarked on an initiative to introduce a new product.

Methodology

In-depth Interview

Persona Development

Duration

2 months

Role

Project Lead

How I approached the problem?

The Double Diamond approach divides the design process into four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. It emphasizes exploring a broad range of ideas and then narrowing down to a focused solution through iterative design and user-centered thinking.

Preliminary Research

I conducted preliminary interviews with our customers and sought through customer feedback logs to (1) develop personas out of our customer base (2) understand the context of the problem

In depth Interviews

I interviewed 15 people (3 from each persona) by reaching out to a fraction of customers that had given feedback and a fraction of customers that had agreed to be contacted for future products and visions.

After coding out themes and insights out of the interview transcriptions, I placed them within an empathy map. An empathy map is a visual tool that captures what a user says, thinks, does, and feels, helping teams understand their experiences, behaviors, and emotions. It guides design decisions by highlighting user needs, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.

I identified three key themes to highlight in a Venn diagram:

  1. Sustainable Mission: Emphasizing our commitment to being an eco-friendly brand and reducing waste.

  2. Affordability: Highlighting our unique selling point of providing cost-effective products.

  3. Quality Control: Ensuring rigorous standards to maintain high product quality.

Analysis

Methodology: Empathy Mapping and Venn Diagram

The intersection of these three circles showed that relying on donated cloth as our primary material was the ideal solution. It met our sustainability goals, remains cost-effective, and allowed for easier quality control, integrating all three key themes seamlessly.

To brainstorm ideas

we used a MOOD-BOARD

and introduced the

BANDANA

Impact

  • I introduced 3 products in total: A bandana, a laptop sleeve and belts. The latter two were introduced after basic market research and brainstorming. We found that the bandana, a product introduced AFTER conducting rigorous user research was the most successful in terms of sales velocity

  • The profit of the enterprise increased by 25% and the sales velocity improved by 16%

  • Customer Feedback abour pricing, cloth design and quality improved.

Reflections

  • Leading a project from start to finish taught me that making decisions as a researcher in industry involves navigating the trade-offs between organizational risk and methodological rigor. It requires embracing pushback to better understand the direction the data is pointing, making sense of how the data aligns with organizational strategies, and understanding its implications for the future.