User Experience | Erik F. Brown

UX | Usability| DesignUsability

I encounter scenarios like this daily. When I can't stop to snap a photo, I keep them in mind as I go, and more often than not they re-emerge several times over the next couple weeks. As a whole of combined experience, they greatly influence my approach to design, and prompt me to re-evaluate corelations between concepts and phenomenon such as anticipation vs. expectation, and cultural-institution and common alternate-use-cases. The stories, images, and documentation are the result of my own creative, design, and critical thinking, and are from a larger collection generating from the result of my own personal experiences and analysis.

Marshalls - Fitting Room User

"From discounts to discovery?" "Definitely not." "Possibly tomorrow." This recaps a specific user experience scenario encountered in a clothing store fitting room. The space is equipped with three hangers labeled “Tomorrow,” “Possibly,” and “Definitely” — a subtle decision-support tool aimed at aiding customer judgment during the try-on process. However, the “Definitely” hanger has been torn off the wall, leaving behind only a broken plastic label. Here were three different parts of a greater picture, present in concept as well as physical reality, that had mixing to create unattainable anticipation with a net negative result for branding, usability, and user experience.

It didn't seem real and I was borderline laughing, before reminding myself that I should probably take a moment to look around for other broken pieces of plastic or tiny metal pins. I discarded my expectations as a negative perception of the stores overall quality replaced the draining humor. It's sad that a single fitting room at Marshalls could have three core business components mix so counter-productively that their main purposes for positive brand building, shopper convenience, driving sales, and micro-incentive/rewards all failed to function as intended.

Fitting Room Labeling System Overview

This report examines a specific user experience scenario encountered in a clothing store fitting room. The space is equipped with three hangers labeled “Tomorrow,” “Possibly,” and “Definitely” — a subtle decision-support tool aimed at aiding customer judgment during the try-on process. However, the “Definitely” hanger has been torn off the wall, leaving behind only a broken plastic label.

This analysis explores how such a detail, though seemingly minor, plays a significant role in shaping customer perception, usability, emotional resonance, and brand trust. This broken “Definitely” hanger is more than a simple missing piece — it represents a UX failure that cascades through usability, emotional engagement, decision-making, and brand trust. It demonstrates how invisible UX (the unnoticed patterns when working correctly) becomes highly visible in its absence. Thoughtful, consistent, emotionally resonant UX — even in the smallest fixtures — builds confidence, delight, and loyalty. Its absence does the opposite. The solution is not just a physical repair but a renewed commitment to end-to-end, emotionally intelligent experience design.

UXAnalysis_Marshall's.docx

Usability Analysis Report: Fitting Room Labeling System Overview

This report evaluates the fitting room experience in a clothing store using a strictly usability-focused framework. In this scenario, the fitting room offers three labeled hangers — “Tomorrow,” “Possibly,” and “Definitely” — to assist in organizing tried-on clothes. The “Definitely” hanger is torn from the wall, leaving a broken label behind. The goal here is to assess the practical impact of this issue on task completion, efficiency, and system reliability, divorced from broader emotional or branding concerns central to UX. From a usability standpoint, a missing “Definitely” hanger disrupts a user’s ability to efficiently and accurately complete a fitting room task: evaluating, sorting, and deciding on clothing. The broken element undermines the task model, increases error likelihood, and forces unnecessary workarounds — all hallmarks of diminished usability. Fixing this is not just about aesthetics or brand alignment — it's about restoring a fully functional interaction system where physical objects support a seamless and low-effort user task loop.

UsabilityAnalysis_Marshalls.docx

Provider-Side Live Chat Technical and Design Language

My user request for Live Chat support with my web hosting provider involved a frustrating cascade of usability issues, poor AI escalation handling, UI bugs, and a misleading feature experience, along with visual technical and behavioral inconsistencies. The interaction highlights friction across three core UX categories: discoverability, control/feedback, and reliability.

User Research and Persona Cards

As a User Experience (UX) Designer, leveraging archetypes in research and design is essential for gaining empathy, understanding user diversity, and optimizing solutions for a variety of needs. Personas are fictional yet research-based profiles that represent key user types. They help me design with specific needs, behaviors, and goals in mind. For solo UX/game projects, even if I didn’t conduct formal user research, I can create proto-personas based on my target audience, assumptions, or playtesters.

These persona descriptions were based on a Gothic style for a bit of a darker touch, though could have easily been designed toward High Fantasy, Cyberpunk, or Contemporary art styles as well. Really any style suitable for the study. It's important to remember that non-standard feedback from outside a target audience can often yield helpful data too! Style aside, these are structured across several age groups, and each persona will have details on age, physical/mental traits, interests, temperament, and descriptors.

Ages 5-15:

Child Dreamer (Handicap): A 10-year-old with a prosthetic leg. Loves collecting ravens' feathers and sketching dark castles by candlelight.
Wild Soul: A mischievous 8-year-old with untamed curly hair, who believes they’re a vampire in training and has an affinity for dramatic flair.
Mystical Artist: A 15-year-old who paints eerie landscapes of misty forests and moonlit ruins. Always wears black gloves.
Bookish Alchemist: A 12-year-old obsessed with potion-making and ancient texts. Carries a leather-bound notebook everywhere.
Melancholic Musician: A 14-year-old violin prodigy composing haunting tunes for imaginary ballrooms.

Ages 16-24:

Brooding Scholar (Handicap): A 19-year-old wheelchair user and aspiring philosopher, writing a thesis on the concept of Gothic tragedy.
Wild Romantic: A 20-year-old who passionately flirts with the dark and the bizarre, claiming they hear whispers in the wind.
Graveyard Poet: An 18-year-old who writes poems in cemeteries and talks about time’s decay.
Occult Enthusiast: A 21-year-old learning tarot, dabbling in sigils, and craving mystical discoveries.
Ethereal Performer: A 24-year-old operatic singer whose voice makes people shiver, often likened to an angel of the underworld.

Ages 25-37:

Reclusive Painter (Handicap): A 31-year-old painter with impaired vision. Their art conveys ethereal, shadowed scenes that leave viewers unsettled.
Untamed Wanderer: A 29-year-old nomad exploring abandoned castles across Europe, telling fabricated ghost stories to locals.
Cursed Heir: A 35-year-old claiming their family is haunted by misfortune, wearing antique lockets passed down through generations.
Byronic Scientist: A 37-year-old biologist experimenting with cutting-edge tech to bring myths to life.
Dark Historian: A 27-year-old fascinated with unsolved Gothic mysteries of the Victorian era.

Ages 38-52:

Silent Gardener (Handicap): A 42-year-old with partial hearing loss, tending to a garden of poisonous plants under moonlight.
Mystic Vagabond: A 45-year-old wanderer with no clear home, leaving cryptic messages in ancient ruins.
Cryptic Novelist: A 38-year-old who lives like a recluse, pouring their heart into Gothic novels inspired by urban legends.
Nightmare Architect: A 48-year-old designing surreal, gloomy buildings for modern cities.
Chimerical Librarian: A 52-year-old keeping obscure books in their personal labyrinthine library.

Quest 3 Head Mounted Display Hardware Modifications

From ever first hearing about VR growing up, to owning the Oculus Rift and META 3 headsets, I've gone from beaming optimist to VR enthusiast. I want the industry to grow, and for people to have the best introduction to the platform as possible. For all the technology upgrades from Quest 2 to Meta 3, the biggest challenge to new user adoption, when left unmodified, is built into the duration of life for the product. And was the biggest glaring long-term issue that became immediatly noticable during my very first impressions. This thing is uncomfortable.

My Meta Quest 3 build is working and done for now, and it looks and balances great, the two-part epoxy is flexible and strong, and the straps are snug and comfortable. This works well for me, but the next step is to dremel the left side USB-C slot back toward the earphone, so the cable has length to adust the headsize fully open for others.

Components:

3-d printed adapter for Vive Pro Audio Headstrap
Vive Pro Audio Headstrap
Modified BinbokVR hotswappable battery headstrap with 2x 8000mAh rechargable battery.
Meta Quest Touch Plus Controller Active Straps
KKCOBVR cooling faceplate
Thick padded and easy-clean light blocking face pad.

See Price

Contained no pricing information through suggested menu pathing. Display model was secured with an incredibly short anti-theft cable which made getting a feel for the device impossible.

Game Glitches and Boundary Breaking

Every piece of software or video game has bugs or glitches, and in a way, they help to support the understanding of "intended functionality". As a developer they are a part of the experience, and something to be sorted out in code or integrated development environment. As a gamer, sooner rather than later it seems, I'm able to find them. As long as I don't loose all my gear, can respawn above ground or in a new area, or have a recent save to reload, they are a blast. But probably not something intended to be considered a feature, not a bug.

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