CARRY CLR
What can I do in terms of accessibility in order to assist (colorblind) people identifying the specific color of garments and let them gain trust in their process of decision making when it comes to putting together outfits?
"When going shopping I saw this cool-looking t-shirt from afar. Entering the store and looking at the t-shirt up close I did not know what color it was. To me the shirt looked green, black or grey, but since I thought, well sometimes they put it on the price tag I decided to check it out. The price tag said that the color of the t-shirt was asphalt, suddenly buying this shirt came to be about one of the great questions of life: what color is asphalt? I was taught that nature is mostly green and constructions were often grey, but I was not sure. Still not knowing what color it is adds more complexity to the process. Who are you going to ask? Then you got to look around and find someone and when you finally found a person to ask they often give you a confused look, as if you where joking. And you can’t really blame them. The question is kind of silly when it’s not being asked by a child."
In a world that is nowadays all about accessibility and equality I felt like the color blind were still left out of everything. By first orienting myself to find out the meaning of color, finding out what color blindness entails and finding out what technologies already exist that could aid me in creating a solution to build the base of knowledge I needed to start this project. By conducting an extensive survey I got in-depth with the target group, really finding the core issues they experience when it comes to shopping while being color blind. Not only did they suffer from minor social anxiety while having to ask everyone around them always what color a certain garment is, but they also struggled with combining garments at home and often forgot what they already had meaning: that they might have bought a top a year ago but can not recall its color. Besides this I also paid a lot of attention to feasibility and researched the possibilities of using phyton and an AI. Based on all of the gathered information I started creating prototypes which lead me up to the point of testing out my designs.
The end product turned out to be a tool easily accessible to all and easy to use as I paid a lot of attention to UX design. The tool consisting of an App would aid them on the following subjects; Inspecting the color of garments, Your (digital) wardrobe and Inspiration.
Inspecting the color of fabrics
This lets them take a picture of the piece of garment which's color they would like to identify. After uploading, the color(s) will be identified and their wardrobe will be filtered on items containing the same color. This aids them not only by informing what color a garment has but also by showing what could possibly go well together with it and how good the match is (shown in percentages).
Your (digital) wardrobe
In order to add a garment to the digital wardrobe, they are to make 2 photos. One of the entire garment and one photo up close to the fabric (make sure that the fabric is well exposed), this way the app can define its colors and they will have a clear overview of the items you own.
Inspiration
They can fill up their folder with images of styles they like. Whilst trying to use head-to-toe images as much as possible. The App will then generate outfits for them based on your wardrobe that would match their inspiration so that they look fabulous wherever they go! They can also take or upload a picture of themselves and select the colors of their features, a color palette will be recommended based on them. After having your color palette set up you can always see if a fabric matches the palette.
The design
In order to make the application as physically attractive for everyone as it could be I created a color palette that would add multiple colors to the image for each and every one of them.
The logo I made for this app’s name is Carry Color. As color is written differently in the United States than in United Kingdom I decided to make it inclusive by not using vowels. This way it can be interpreted in both color and colour. The letters “clr” are in italic as if they were on the move “carried”, since you carry your phone, as well as your wardrobe then and your color scan with you wherever you go. The dot after the textual part of the logo is a compact circle full of color (mirroring how small something that big can be carried), with again such a variety of color that at least 2 different colors are seen by someone who’s color blind. The images are all edited the same way in order to keep the same style throughout the entire design.
Intro story is inspired on a story I found during my research: