Artefact 1-4 Evaluations

Artefact One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q3eMiuIP2Q

For my first artefact I created a fashion film which was within the ‘one to ten minute’ typical length of a fashion film. I included a model dancing to music and added an underlying narrative. My aim was to show the general public the film and ask them to fill out a questionnaire in order to receive feedback about their initial feelings and opinions towards an example of a typical fashion film in order to gather ideas and queries which I could possibly experiment on.

From analysing my results I found that 62.5% of candidates would like to see a fashion film made for their brand. Some of the candidates felt that the film did sell the clothes because the film was quirky, unique and engaging which would captivate an audience more into viewing them.

However, many said that the film didn’t show enough detail or information on the materials and felt that the film worked better as artistic representation of high end fashion rather than a selling advert. Many candidates described the film as ‘trendy’ but ‘too long’. One candidate said the film is suitable as a background film rather than a film on its own.

From these findings I managed to get a good sense of how the public would prefer a fashion film to be distributed in sense of length and content. For example, if a fashion film is to be viewed on its own as a selling point, it is preferred to be shorter in time and to include more detail and information about the garments. However, if this film was to be played, for instance at a catwalk show as a background film, the visual effects are good at engaging viewers in a unique artistic approach.



Artefact Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzV68N6a50M

I wanted to explore whether a moving image is more likely to sell a garment rather than a still image. I asked candidates to answer “Which of the following aspects do you feel are important to know about a fashion product when buying an item of clothing on-line?” by ticking the boxes for the aspects they felt most applied.
I got candidates to look at a still image of a garment with the same list of aspects and asked them to tick the boxes for “What aspects of the clothing item can you learn from this image that you feel successfully sell the product?”

Finally, I made them watch a short clip of a model wearing the garment and moving around in it. I included the same list of aspects and got the candidates to tick the answers they felt applied to the question; “What aspects of the clothing item can you learn from this moving image that you feel successfully sell the product?”

From analysing my results I found that the moving image of the garment represents more aspects of the garment than the still image. I found that ‘Price’ was the most important aspect chosen by 81.3% of candidates followed by ‘How it fits the body’ chosen by 62.5% of participants. How it moves was the least important with no votes.

I decided to list all the aspects under either of the two titles ‘Still Image and ‘Moving image’. For example ‘Style’ received 11 votes in the still image but received more, 13, in the moving image so I put it under ‘Moving Image’. I added the percentage of how important people felt each aspect was for example ‘style’ had 31.3% of the vote. I then added all the percentages together of the aspects and their importance and both ‘Still image’ and ‘Moving image’ received the exact same amount of 181.4%. Thus showing that although participants felt the moving image showed more aspects of the garment than the still image. The importance of what was shown to sell the item was equal.




Artefact Three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyF5q5wRkBM

During my written research project I found that some fashion designers feel that YouTube does not fit in with the language of fashion and has low image value. I wanted to carry out an experiment to test what the public thought about Fashion Films on YouTube and whether it could affect their opinion on the fashion brand and its garments.

To do this I pretended to the audience that I was about to show them a film which is very exclusive, for example ‘It has not been released in the UK’ and ‘I am only allowed to show 10 people’. I showed them the film on a large screen. I then asked them to tick boxes for the words they felt the film represented the brand and its garments.

After everyone had finished ticking there boxes I showed them that this film is actually a film on YouTube viewed by over 11,000 people. Had the use of YouTube affected their views about the product? Did they think Less well of the product or better? I asked them to tick what words they felt best represented the film after seeing it upon YouTube to see if it had affected their views.

From analysing my results I found that the majority of the participants generally didn’t feel it affected their views ‘any better’ or ‘less well’ on the products but some did feel they were more modern being shown on YouTube. Perhaps this is due to YouTube being a contemporary format it has been reflected on the garments. 10% of the participants thought less well of the film one of the reasons was because they said ‘YouTube isn’t a place you'd advertise high quality brands.’ 10% of the overall participants thought better of the product after seeing it on YouTube because promoting the video on social media shows the company is trying to be more accessible.



Artefact Four

http://www.youtube.com/fashionbrand12

I created a prototype clothing company named ‘Fashion Brand’ and created a fashion film for the brand and a website where customers had the chance to buy the clothes. I than created a ‘Fashion brand’ page on each of the social networks where viewers can watch a fashion film and then if they like one of the clothing items they can be linked directly to a page in which they can purchase the item. I asked participants to view each page and asked them to try and watch a film on each network and see if they could try and reach the page where they could potentially buy an item. I then asked the participants the questions such as, Which was the easiest to navigate? Was one more suitable for fashion than the others? Which one had the best appearance? I found from my feedback that users found the ‘Fashion brand’ Facebook page the easiest social network to navigate. Twitter was the most ‘confusing’ to use navigate due to their not being enough emphasis on the sales aspect and that most participants stated that they had never used Twitter before.  I discovered that the participants felt the Facebook page was the most suitable for fashion because they believed more people use Facebook and that it’s easy to type in a name/brand into the Facebook search box and find a page that have videos or pictures. I found from my questionnaires that users thought the ‘Fashion brand’ YouTube page was the most modern because it was clear how to watch videos and had a modern layout, style, background photo and use of fonts and colours. YouTube and Twitter was voted for best appearance because they both had background photos which looked professional.  Although Twitter was the least modern, with one vote, because although one participant felt the background looked professional others complained that you couldn’t clearly see the whole photo. Facebook was voted for the worst appearance because the page needed more visual aids and did not have enough colours. The majority of the participants felt than none of the networks cheapened that fashion brand. One participant stated that “The video looked classy and made the clothes look expensive” showing that the style of the video was more important than the background or platform is was being shown on. However, 20% of the candidates said that they felt Facebook didn’t look very classy and is so accessible that it seems like it could be cheaper to advertise clothes, whereas twitter seems more exclusive to bigger designers. I finally asked participants if they could think of any platforms they would prefer to view and buy fashion clothes off and 60% said television, other examples were the fashion brands website and EBay. From these results I can see that YouTube is more modern and has the preferred appearance however Facebook is more suitable and easier to use. Is navigation or appearance more important?

Artefact 5

From artefact 4 I found that many people thought television would be a good platform to promote fashion brands through. For my artefact 5 I created three 30 second fashion films for the company ‘Fashion Brand’ and got users to watch them alongside other television adverts on a DVD through their television set. I then created a button which appeared during my fashion films which enabled the user to click on with their remote and be directed to the ‘Fashion Brand’ web page where the item could be purchased. They then had the option of clicking back and continuing to watch the following adverts, like they would usually when watching television. I decided to compare Television with Social networks and along the way find out if people thought ‘navigation’ or ‘appearance’ was more important when buying items through fashion films.

I then asked the users to fill out a feedback questionnaire. I found that more people spent more of their time watching television than using social networks. Television was voted as being the ‘Easiest platform to navigate’ over social networks. Reasons some of the participants gave was because it was a simple method of purchase, accessible and had an instant touch button response. The majority of participants would prefer to watch fashion films on their television because they can view them on a larger screen, sit comfortably and see clothes clearer. Most participants would prefer to buy clothing items on their televisions because the pictures are often flat on a computer and you cannot get a clear idea of that the garment looks like. Also participants felt that ‘the television forces you to watch films you may never have searched online which tempts you into buying new stuff.’ All participants agreed they would buy from this selling technique in the future because it seems exciting, interesting and it was easy moving from television viewing to making a purchase. One participant did say they would ‘possibly purchase from the television if the item was not available online.’ 80% of participants felt navigation was more important because they would give up quickly if they couldn’t navigate a site. The others felt that if you want something you’ll go out your way to buy it.

Only a small amount of the participants favoured social networks over television. They felt that social networks gave users more time to browse, compare and think about their purchase. They had the option to pause videos and freedom to move onto other pages. I asked the participants ways in which Television could be improved in which the responses were; when directed to a page where you can buy an item still have the television continuing on the screen somewhere or/and to add a ‘return to this advert later’ button. Perhaps a next artefact could be to discover how Television shopping could be improved.