MODA | Devpost

Inspiration

The name Moda is Serbian for fashion. This is intentional since our company knows that customers have style as their priority when shopping for clothes. Moda consumers want a really good-looking garment and if it’s sustainable they are happy about it. But they won’t choose the more sustainable garment before a better-looking one. This is why having lots of small, local, and large businesses on the app keeps variety wide and options open. Users can continue to shop with their sense of style first and leave thinking about sustainability to us.

What it does

Business Level While Moda is a free app for consumers, the way it keeps operations running is by charging fashion brands and businesses to host their inventory for sale on the site. These fashion brands will be vetted to ensure sustainable practices in at least one aspect of the circular economy of fashion. When a customer sees the possible options of sustainable fashion on the app, the Moda app also shines a light on brands that are not doing their part to join the growing circular economy to help our local economies and our environment. If a brand is absent from the app, it can be assumed that they do not have products that fit the requirements to sell on the platform. This app is the beginning of the solution to encourage more businesses to adapt to a circular economy mindset with their business.

Brand Messages Don’t sacrifice style when shopping sustainably Approachable, educational, friendly Join the movement, ride the green wave

UX Focus Research User Needs, Marketplace Gaps, How to best guide the product based on data Information Architecture to sort visual aspects of garments, plus fit, size, area Prototyping hi-fi wireframes to show the app’s potential & possibility for development

Technical Development Focus Using visual scanning technologies (I do not know what this is called), second hand shops can scan in inventory with a series of filters so that the algorithm can match the item to what the user sees in their screenshot

What circular design problem does this solve?

produce - increases number of users (second hand shoppers) to keep items in circulation (“the movement”) produce - lowers number of production units for non-circular businesses as their sales decrease due to customers buying more second-hand items upcycle - businesses encouraged to upcycle their own products for the next season, and promote them as options for sale on this app produce - businesses maintain a program to always sell an upcycled line, with potential To switch to completely upcycled materials To spend more on textiles that are sustainably sourced since they are saving on products that they are using from in-house Nudge theory - the growing number of businesses promoted and using our site will encourage others to ‘do the right thing’ and work sustainably as well!

How is this viable as a business? Moda charges businesses a 2% transaction fee per item purchased through the site In exchange, the business gets free marketing right on the app! A certain portion of profits goes back to charities who run non-profit thrifts and as ‘scholarships’ to small businesses who host on the site For a fee and a disclaimer, companies with dead stock could also pay to market their dead stock on the Moda app (rather than putting it to landfill)

Targeted Users A shopper interested but wary of buying second hand due to finding a style they like, the correct fit or spending lots of time searching through second hand items (They also may be wary due to trying on lots of clothes in an indoor space due to COVID).

How we built it

We built our prototype in Figma. Utilised C# for machine learning.

Challenges we ran into

At the beginning of the task, it was difficult to determine what we should be doing. With such a broad brief it was difficult to figure out what approach to take for our final idea. When trying to implement our app idea we faced a lot of challenges. One of the biggest was the code. How to write the code for such app? How it works? Where should we start? So, firstly we had a lot to find out. Once we figured out how the apps with similar functions work, we started hacking. However, there were also a lot of challenges. First, we are just beginners. Secondly, you cannot find the exact tutorial on how to write a code because there are many circumstances that differ (data/data set, programming environment and language, etc.). Therefore, we did our best trying to find the exact methods of how machine learning works and applying them to our situation (MODA app).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our ability to create a prototype in such a short time span. For two of us, this was our second hackathon, and for the rest of us, this was our first. Therefore, we are extremely proud of simply completing this hackathon. Likewise, we were a very diplomatic team and were able to come to agreements very quickly. Finally, we are proud that we were able to contribute to the circular economy and do good for the planet.

What we learned

We learnt how to build our own data sets and developed in-depth knowledge of machine learning. We learnt the importance of consumer engagement and nudging in relation to the circular economy and sustainability, it is not enough to inform consumers of environmental issues, but rather we need to offer incentives. Likewise, analysing Moda's business model we have learnt that we can incentivise businesses to adopt more sustainable and ethical practices by highlighting and encouraging consumers to purchase from more socially conscious brands.

What's next for MODA

Design - create a responsive website which would make it easier for businesses to upload their listings on the site > for the hackathon we are focusing on usability for the consumer Tech : Evolution to more advanced options for customers AR to see how clothes look on the body