Materialliance – Digital Platform for the Textile and Fashion Industry

Overview: Materialliance is a digital platform serving the fashion and textile industries, specializing in circular and seamless knitting. Created by Santoni Shanghai, it provides a central hub for knowledge sharing and supplier discovery. When I joined Materialliance, the platform lacked clear market insights, user research, and a defined vision. My mission was to gather critical user data and develop a clear user-centered strategy to guide the platform's evolution.

Approach: To build a strong foundation, I first implemented a comprehensive user research plan. This included a series of interviews with key stakeholders in the fashion and textile industries—fashion designers, yarn suppliers, garment manufacturers, and technology makers. The survey helped us understand the pain points, needs, and preferences of our user base.

Based on the survey insights, I created tailored three user personas that would serve as a blueprint for designing the platform’s features and content. I then worked on structuring the platform's knowledge base around seamless knitting techniques, best practices, and the latest industry trends. A significant addition was a comprehensive database of sustainable yarn suppliers and high-quality knitwear manufacturers, aimed at promoting transparency and efficiency within the industry.

Solution: The platform’s redesign focused on three key features:

• Knowledge Base: An in-depth resource on seamless knitting techniques, best practices, and trends, curated specifically for industry professionals.

• Material Library: A searchable, trustworthy database of digitized knitted materials.

• User-Centric Design: Features tailored to the needs of fashion designers, manufacturers, and yarn suppliers, ensuring each user persona could easily find the resources most relevant to their work.

Impact: Materialliance has since become an industry leader in providing essential resources for seamless and circular knitting. The platform has played a critical role in promoting transparency and efficiency in the textile sector.

• Time on page: 2.8 minutes on average, demonstrating strong user engagement.

• User Acquisition & Engagement: Sustained growth, with a highly engaged user base, particularly in the sustainable fashion space.

Materialliance continues to be a trusted resource for companies looking to advance in the seamless and circular knitting industry, strengthening its position as a key player in global textile innovation. You can see the live project here.