I embarked on a journey full of unknowns almost 10 years ago and I look back in retrospective at the sum of all the parts.
I write this as I introduce myself as a professional Interaction designer who got here from the world of fashion. The roles of Interaction designers, UX Designers or researchers have just now become mainstream, there’s a lot of ambiguity and I always get asked about what I do, why I do it and how I got into it. Usually, you’d see zero to no overlap in the fashion industry and the software development world. Yet, I’ve unconsciously applied the connection between the yarns and the pixels which have helped me become a better designer over time.
Breaking the pattern
It began in 2011 with a decision that changed my life. Right out of high school, I decided that I’d like to focus on something that best utilises my art skills instead of going with what everyone thought is a safe career choice. I knew I had a love for the crafts, and that inspired me to take up a 4-year course on Knitwear Design and Technology at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi.
Where I come from, our elders have a fair say in what our career aspirations should be. Our jobs have to be stable, make good money and only certain professions count as reputable. Studying fashion was a far cry from that, to even border on being counted disrespectful, spoilt or “in it for the drugs”.
The craft skills
My fashion education was a wonderful place to hone my craft skills, develop my own aesthetics and understand how a business operates in the fashion industry. The courses ranged from fashion illustration, pattern making, stitching, production technology, photography to soft skills such as entrepreneurship and presentation.
It was imminent that the rigorous hands-on training that we go through at NIFT gave me the opportunity to better my craft skills and focus on developing a working style. Those are some useful tools one uses to design something meaningful- a whole product.
The product design process
A product design process for a fashion designer is not a far departure from the product design process of a User experience designer. The underlying element in both cases is exactly the same- Empathy and user-centeredness.
As a fashion designer, we start by evaluating our customer, their requirements, the seasons, available fabrics, latest industry trends and highlights, competition analysis and how the product is going to be perceived by a customer, either on a rack in a store or on a model wearing it.
Yes, there is a stronger element of aesthetics at play here, because the process of selecting a garment from a store is not the same as the process for selecting what software I am going to use for my cloud deployments. There are more visual elements at play when a buyer evaluates the garments before purchase, but remember, a customer would never buy a garment if they didn’t think it was functional. The usability of a garment is of key importance, both to the manufacturers and the customers, and that plays a role in how the products are evaluated against their competition, along with their physical appeal and ease of use.
Collaborating with teams
The responsibility of a fashion designer is to look beyond our core priorities of delivering designs and specification documents. Understanding the development process was key, starting from how you dye yarn to how you do line planning and management on a shop floor or procure material. We always knew that at the start of our careers as professional fashion designers, we’re not going to do the tasks of stitching seams and making elaborate embroideries by hand but by doing it ourselves we learned important lessons in manufacturing, planning, and how stuff gets shipped.
This informs our design process of what’s possible and what’s not. It helps prioritise and determine the order of development and production. Imagine designing for a software while not knowing how CSS styles work. The creative process is most effective if you the end value of the product and how it would go through the stages of development to reach the hands of the user.
Prototyping everything
Looking back, I can see now that what really changed my relationship to software and technology was letting my creative process lead. Starting to create early patches, dummy drapes and paper patterns is not unique to fashion design, I see myself using these tactics to validate early designs with digital or paper screen mockups. This process is the backbone of every design sprint and ensures only the best design goes through.
IT TAKES A LOT TO BE DIFFERENT
In my current role as an interaction designer, it can be challenging to adapt to the ever changing technology and adopt new practices, but I always look back at the learnings from my stints in fashion to inform my decisions, come up with creative solutions and never forgetting to be different! To sum up:
“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
Nupur Aggarwal 
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