Elle For Google Glass

The frontier of innovation

Elle, the iconic lifestyle magazine from Hearst, was the first fashion brand to develop an application for Google Glass. Elle partnered with GoogleX and Perpetual to build the first Google Glass Magazine application to engage users using emerging technologies.

Innovation partnership

​The partnership between Elee and Perpetual was a result of Hearst;s ongoing research and innovation efforts and Perpetual's corporate innovation offerings. At the early stages of the project, the team at Perpetual brainstormed with the teams at Elle and GoogleX to come up with the most effective experience on this new frontier device.
User Experience
Software Development
Strategic Direction
​Content Selection
Early Stage Guidance
Technology Platform

Solution

​The teams worked together to determine the best content and deliverables, as the content consumption experience on Google Glass is vastly different from that of a magazine or website. Timeliness and context were critical. The teams collaborated to deliver a Google Glass application that would enable users to do the following:
Subscribe to their favorite content 
Experience content in formats suited to the Google Glass experience
Discover and shop directly from Google Glass

A Closer Look

Subscriptions to ElleDispatch, Lookbooks and more

Elle for Google Glass allows users to subscribe to timely and contextual content. Subscriptions include:
  • Read-aloud excerpts from Elle Dispatch, a fashion and culture news blog
  • Posts from the Street Chic blog, updated daily with photos of fashionable people on the streets of New York and Paris
  • Pictures,videos and other multimedia content to elevate engagement with other popular sections of the magazine such as Street Chic and Horoscopes
​"Save for Later" Feature

A "Save for Later" feature was implemented on readers' timelines to let them save their favorite items on a wishlist. These favorited items would then be displayed on an Elle for Google Glass dashboard, a companion responsive mobile app we developed, allowing users to go deeper into content discovered on Google Glass.​


Audible Summaries

Elle for Google Glass users are fashion-forward young professionals living a fast-paced lifestyle with interests in fashion and culture. We built audible summaries to have daily fashion updates read aloud to them during their coffee run, commute or on-the-go.
Discovery and eCommerce 
​
We pushed the boundaries to allow users to shop directly from their Google Glass device. Once a reader favorites an item on the Elle for Google Glass application, they are able to purchase it with one-tap on their device via a service called ShopStyle.

results

​The application was one of the first Google Glass applications launched along with CNN, Twitter and Gmail at Google's annual I/O conference. It was among the top 10 most accessed applications on Google Glass.