The why and the what,
in one place.

01At a glance

A shopper reads the fiber-content label into Threadwise — by typing it or photographing it — and gets a fast, honest, shame-free verdict on whether the garment is worth buying, judged on its material. It works exactly where brand-rating apps go blind: the unbranded and thrifted item.

02Context & vision

A portfolio case study, not a production product — built to demonstrate senior product thinking and real fluency with AI as a design material.

AI in the back

The expensive AI work runs once, offline, to build a frozen reference database. The shipped product makes no AI calls at runtime and the user never talks to an AI. The intelligence is absorbed at build time so the front stays instant, private, and calm.

Concept vs production

Settled physical facts about fibers are real and free, so they are used as real. A certified sustainability score is proprietary and expensive, so the composite is a transparent, self-authored model on top of those facts, openly labeled illustrative. The moment a task starts to feel like running a real company is the edge of the frame — and the response is to stop or simplify.

The ambition

Success is a better purchase, and eventually a shopper who has learned enough to read labels themselves and need the tool less. A good teacher works toward being unnecessary. The vision is bounded on purpose: Threadwise does one honest thing well, and does not try to solve sustainability, rate every brand, or manage a wardrobe.

03The problem

The real problem is a human decision problem, not a missing feature. The barrier is not a lack of facts — it is powerlessness and the fear of getting it wrong.

04Target user

Built for one person, not everyone. Narrowing to this user is what keeps the product sharp.

The sustainability-curious, non-expert shopper — she already reads food and skincare labels and wants the same clarity for clothing. She is fast and physical about it: standing, seconds to spare, one hand free, sometimes offline, increasingly on a thrifted item. Supply-chain researchers, brand analysts, and anyone wanting a wardrobe manager are deliberately out of frame.

05User decision journey

The arc Threadwise serves: from doubt, through a calm verdict, to a confident decision the shopper can act on and move past.

Before, doubt: powerless at the shelf, label unreadable, claims untrusted. During, the read: one honest signal — a verdict, a score, and one plain reason, in one breath. After, capability: a decision, then out — nothing saved, nothing uploaded.

06Key insights

Four insights from the research, each written as a design directive. Every design choice should walk back up to one of these, or it is decoration.

The barrier is powerlessness, not ignorance. Shoppers trust the fiber label precisely because brands have trained them to distrust everything else. The decision is fast and physical, and loneliest on the exact item — unbranded, thrifted — that every brand-rating tool goes blind on. And a single score is both what people want and what can hurt them if it is not handled honestly.

07Product point of view

A practical, non-judgmental, honest broker for real shopping moments.

Threadwise states what the fabric is and gets out of the way — practical rather than idealistic, non-judgmental in every verdict, decision-support rather than a store. It openly admits it is an illustrative model built on real facts, and that admission is the whole source of trust.

08Design principles

Six principles resting on a low-tech, secure-attachment philosophy: teach through use, orient rather than trap, return the user to the world, measure capability not engagement.

The refusals — hard lines, rejected on sight

09MVP scope

Text-first, single-garment, sustainability-led, with a practical durability-and-care layer. Text exercises the entire data-to-verdict logic at the least technical risk; the photo path is additive realism on a working core.

10Main user flow

Single garment. The result is a card that rises over a dimmed Home and expands on tap — the resolved flow direction that serves the rapid re-check wedge.

11Future comparison flow

Designed and wireframed, but not in the MVP. Useful when a shopper is choosing between several similar garments — most naturally on a thrift rack or a search page.

12Scoring, in brief

The verdict is a calm, illustrative signal — a large number with its verdict word and an “illustrative, meant to guide” cue, never a precise gauge. The full engine lives in its own document.

End of life is weighted highest because it is the product’s clearest differentiator and the least understood by shoppers. Blends graduate the end-of-life penalty rather than hard-capping to the lowest fiber — so a 97% cotton, 3% elastane tee does not read as “skip.” Multi-component (lined) garments carry one headline verdict anchored on the shell, with the lining as an honest modifier. Durability and care are surfaced as qualitative notes, not folded into the score.

13Content & tone

Voice: calm, plain, warm. Short sentences, common words. A knowledgeable friend who shops with you — never a lecturer or a salesperson.

14Information architecture

Deliberately flat. Three places, no hierarchy, no menus to browse.

Progressive disclosure is the mechanism that lets one screen serve both a two-second glance and a curious drill-down: the peek shows verdict, score, and reason; everything else waits for the expand; the five score dimensions wait behind the “why this score” accordion.

15Decision log

The confirmed decisions that govern hi-fi. Use this to refer back rather than re-litigate.

16Gaps & next steps before hi-fi

Direct, as a senior reviewer would put it. The design system is not a blocker — it is final and ready to build against.