6 min
Project Summary
Project: Website Expansion for Recycled Clothing Initiative & Sponsor Visibility
Client: Sustain-A-Look (Sustainable Fashion Brand)
Role: UX & UI Designer
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Portfolio, Usability Testing
Overview:
Sustain-A-Look needed a digital refresh that better communicated its mission of ethical fashion and deepened user engagement across key touchpoints. As they expanded community initiatives—like clothing recycling and sponsor partnerships—their website struggled to reflect those priorities clearly. I was brought in to elevate the site’s functionality, storytelling, and accessibility. Working closely with Sustain-A-Look’s founder and community outreach coordinator, I analyzed existing pain points and designed updated layouts, content structures, and interactive features that supported their evolving goals.
Goals:
To create a website redesign for Sustain-A-Look that effectively communicates the client's mission highlights the new donation and recycled clothing programs, and provides a seamless and accessible purchasing experience.
Research
Understanding User Needs & Site Challenges
To ensure the redesign aligned with both user expectations and Sustain-A-Look’s mission, I began by conducting a content and usability audit of the original website. This helped identify structural gaps, accessibility issues, and opportunities to better highlight the brand’s growing community initiatives.
Given the project constraints, I also analyzed similar websites from sustainable fashion brands to compare how they showcased donation and partnership programs. This competitive review helped guide best practices around layout clarity, visual storytelling, and accessible interaction design.
Key Findings
- Low visibility of initiatives: Users had difficulty locating recycling or donation information, limiting engagement with key programs.
- Dense and unstructured content: Long text blocks with minimal hierarchy made it challenging to scan or understand content quickly.
- Unclear or missing calls to action: Donation instructions were not easily discoverable or actionable.
- Accessibility concerns: Inconsistent color contrast and long-form layouts created barriers for users with visual or cognitive impairments.
These insights directly shaped my approach to the redesign — from streamlining content and improving visual hierarchy to implementing accessibility-focused enhancements that created a more intuitive and inclusive experience.
Users & Their Journeys
As part of the project brief, I worked with two provided user personas: Sunny, a socially conscious fashion influencer, and Kierra, a sustainability-minded mother and everyday shopper. These personas represent key audience segments with unique goals, values, and frustrations when interacting with the Sustain-A-Look website.
Using these personas, I mapped out each user’s journey to identify common friction points—from unclear navigation and limited product filtering to accessibility barriers and incomplete checkout experiences. These insights directly informed my design decisions and helped ensure the redesigned site would better support diverse user needs.
Persona 1: Sunny Panesar | The Hybrid Influencer
- Age: 27
- Gender: Male (He/Him)
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
- Values: Cruelty-Free & Vegan, Transparency, Traceability, Social Responsibility
- Quote: “I want to inspire men around the world to have confidence in expressing themselves through fashion.”
About:
Sunny is a socially conscious fashion influencer who encourages younger men to embrace bold, sustainable styles. He partners with ethical brands to promote cruelty-free fashion that challenges the norms of fast fashion culture.
Motivations:
- Creative self-expression through fashion
- Promoting ethical consumption
- Staying on-trend with sustainable choices
Pain Points:
- Couldn’t return to the “All Products” page after adding items to the cart
- Missing filtering options for brands and styles
- Couldn’t complete checkout due to a missing CTA
Core Needs:
- Educate his audience about garment life cycles
- Stay up to date with trending ethical brands
- Easily shop and filter stylish, sustainable products
Persona 2: Kierra Fabella | The Slow Fashion Activist
- Age: 39
- Gender: Female (She/Her)
- Location: San Francisco, CA
- Values: Conservation, Natural Resources, Sustainability, Ethical Fashion
- Quote: “We can still enjoy life, dress well, and have so much fun without hurting other beings or our planet.”
About:
Kierra is a family-oriented, budget-conscious shopper who cares deeply about environmental ethics and sustainable living. She seeks transparency and eco-friendly practices in the brands she supports and helps her family adopt a “buy less, wear more” approach.
Motivations:
- Creating stylish looks from what she already owns
- Modeling sustainable living for her family
- Buying from purpose-driven brands
Pain Points:
- Overwhelmed by dense content on the About page
- Couldn’t review cart details on checkout
- Found font and color choices difficult to read
Core Needs:
- Shop from brands that advocate sustainability
- Understand the environmental and wellness benefits of each product
- Support certified sustainable retailers (e.g., GBCI-certified)
Key Tasks and Scope of Work
1. Designed and implemented two new webpages
- Recycled Program Landing Page – Introduced a dedicated space to explain the recycling initiative, donation process, and program benefits.
- Recycled Program Partners Page – Showcased affiliated organizations receiving donations, helping users understand impact and build trust.
2. Maintained visual and functional consistency across the site
Applied consistent layout grids, iconography, and color styles to ensure a seamless experience across new and existing pages.
3. Streamlined and rewrote key site copy
Refined content for clarity and engagement on the following pages:
- Sustain-A-Look (About Us)
- Recycled Program Landing Page
- Recycled Program Partners Page
4. Improved accessibility site-wide
Ensured accessible font sizing and hierarchy, enhanced color contrast, and used clear calls to action to support inclusive browsing for users with visual or cognitive differences.
Recycle Clothing Program
To support the client’s new sustainability initiative, I designed a dedicated Recycled Clothing Program page that integrates seamlessly with the existing brand while enhancing clarity and usability.
This page provides a step-by-step guide for users interested in donating gently used clothing. I organized the content into clearly defined sections—"Why Donate," "Benefits of Recycling," and "How to Care for Your Clothes"—to increase engagement and make the donation process feel approachable and rewarding.
I also introduced a visual donation guide that walks users through the preparation, packaging, and shipping steps. Each stage is supported with concise language and clear headings, making the experience intuitive for first-time donors.
From a UX standpoint, I focused on:
- Content hierarchy and scannability: breaking long paragraphs into bite-sized sections.
- Tone and language: making the copy feel warm and encouraging to reflect the client’s mission.
- Accessibility: improving readability through color contrast, typography, and simplified visuals.
The result is a user-friendly program page that invites participation, builds trust, and reflects the heart of the Sustain-A-Look mission.
Recycle Program Partners
The client also requested a page dedicated to the partner organizations that receive clothing donations. Company logos and written content were provided by the client.
To maintain a cohesive and branded experience across the site, I designed this page using the same visual language and layout structure as the new Recycle Clothing Program page. This ensured a consistent tone and intuitive user experience as visitors navigated between initiatives.
I prioritized accessibility and readability by:
Breaking content into digestible sections with bold headings and icon support.
Choosing colors and contrast ratios that aligned with WCAG standards.
Designing a flexible layout that scaled well across mobile and desktop devices.
By organizing each partner’s contribution under consistent “Mission” and “Impact” sections, users were able to easily understand how each organization collaborates with Sustain-A-Look—and why their donations matter.
Accessibility Enhancements
Accessibility was a core consideration in this redesign, especially given user feedback and persona insights highlighting issues with text visibility and readability. To ensure the new pages were usable by a wider range of audiences, including those with visual or cognitive impairments, I conducted contrast testing using the WebAIM contrast checker.
Color Adjustments:
I tested various foreground/background color combinations to meet WCAG 2.1 guidelines for contrast:
These changes ensure that:
- Small text is legible even at standard body sizes
- Users with low vision or color blindness have a clearer reading experience
- Key actions and UI components remain visible and accessible across devices
Design Takeaways
- Accessibility isn’t just compliance — it’s inclusive design that benefits all users.
- By refining contrast and typography, I helped ensure a more readable, usable, and trustworthy interface that aligns with the mission of an ethical, values-driven brand.
Impact & Results
The redesigned Sustain-A-Look website created a more intuitive and mission-aligned experience for visitors, helping to spotlight key initiatives and foster deeper community engagement. The new Recycled Program pages improved user comprehension around clothing donation logistics, leading to stronger partner visibility and increased traffic to affiliated organizations. Accessibility enhancements—including clearer typography, higher contrast ratios, and simplified layouts—received positive feedback from stakeholders, noting improved readability and a more inclusive experience for users of varying abilities.
These updates gave Sustain-A-Look a more cohesive and professional digital presence, empowering the brand to communicate its values with clarity and authenticity while encouraging action from conscious consumers and collaborators.