Zalando
Fashion for all
In 2022, over 135 million Europeans were living with disabilities or impairments.
With an ageing population, that number is only growing.
And the fashion industry doesn't only ignore them — it actively excludes them.
Zalando wanted to change this.
Where do we begin?
We started with research: educating ourselves with the help of disabled-owned brands and disability inclusion consultants.
And we talked to customers — to understand their needs, desires and challenges, both functional and emotional.
We distilled what we learnt into overarching principles to guide us.
And we workshopped them across teams, business units and markets to include all stakeholders from step zero.
Building the product narrative
We had to be clear on what we were offering — and why customers should care.
With the help of partner brands, buyers and researchers, I translated features into benefits.
And created the product benefit architecture to define the proposition.
Talking to people, not around them.
Sometimes, the desire to not offend can lead us to tiptoe around disability, or talk to people at a distance.
I developed content design principles to define how we'd talk to customers:
With respect for their needs — both unique and universal human needs — without treating them as 'special'.
Laying the foundations
For a new product offering, a key challenge was to make the experience easy to understand, navigate and scale.
I created a content design system to define information hierarchies, categorisation of content, and clear communication of features and benefits.
Experience design: Integrated but discoverable
In parallel, I partnered with product, design and engineering teams to define user journeys and product flows.
We collaborated across departments to modify the global navigation and flows, ensuring that adaptive fashion was integrated but, at the same time, easily discoverable.
Down to the words
After the foundational work, I led the content team to explore ways to structure and craft our content, present to various teams, and iterate with feedback.
We did this until we struck the right balance between customer needs, technical constraints, and evolving business priorities.
Simple. Useful. Joyful.
We began, to be honest, from a state of ignorance — confused and intimidated by the space we were entering.
But our structured process, wide collaboration, and constant iteration brought us to a solution we could be proud of.
One that presented fashion as something joyful and inclusive, solving everyday problems with simplicity and style.
Setting others up for success
To help distributed teams, I created comprehensive documentation covering everything from our research to concrete guidelines for adapting and localising the experience and communications.
An industry standard for inclusivity
We launched the first phase of the product in October 2022, and it quickly got us in the news, globally.
'... exceptional example of leadership and commitment to disability inclusion' - TIME magazine
'... game changing movement towards making adaptive products more accessible' - Forbes
More importantly, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the disability community, including our partners, creators, and, of course, our customers.