Jennifer Hartnett-Henderson

5 Must Have Sewing Apps: No. 2

So you’ve bought some fabric to make something. Who is it for? What are the measurements you need to use? This is the second of five posts covering five must-have sewing apps to make more of what you love.

Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in the apps, nor do I know the developers. I am not being paid to review them. All apps are iOS. All opinions and biases are my own:)

Today, I’ll cover Dress Measurement, by Aeeiee, Inc, version 1.3.1.

Dress Measurement is for you if you:

  • Want to know exactly where to take a measurement
  • Want to know all the measurements you could take to help make a fitted garment
  • Record your own measurements
  • Record client measurements
  • Track several different measurements for the same person

Features

Dress Measurement enables you to record 25 different measurements for women and 20 for men for each client profile. I’ve used images below from the Dress Measurement website to protect the privacy of my clients.

  • Track Many Clients
  • 5 Pages of Measurements per Profile
  • List View of Measurements per Profile
  • Detail view of each measurement

In each profile you can

  • Toggle from metric to imperial measurement systems in the upper right hand corner.
  • List measurements alphabetically using the list icon in the bottom bar
  • Magnify an illustration of each measurement on the measurement detail page
  • Tap and hold the red measurement line in the detail view to bring up written instructions
  • Select the skin color to match that of the person in the profile
  • Export the profile as PDF

Business Model: Freemium

The app is free. You can remove ads for a one-time fee of $6.99 or pay $4.99/month for a Tailor Shop version which allows you to:

  • mass export profiles in CSV format
  • take notes on each profile
  • add photos to each profile

Pros and Cons

Below are the pros and cons I found by using DM for clients and by comparing the app to Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design.

Pros

  • Illustrations show exact locations of measurements in a thick red dashed line (help and documentation)
  • The name of the measurement is defined and accessible through a pop-up for that measurement only (consistency and standards)
  • The list view of measurements has also the name of the measurement and an illustration showing what it is (recognition rather than recall)
  • The visual design is very clean, color scheme is higher contrast, font size is good, illustrations have sufficient weight to be seen. (aesthetic and minimal design)
  • Export data in PDF format (user control)

Cons

  • Does not allow a different left and right side measurement which is necessary for people who have asymmetrical features such as a high hip on one side or a shorter leg
  • No client grouping features – for example all the dancers wearing a particular costume in the same play
  • Does not have a child boy or girl profile

Evaluation

This app has the most comprehensive list of body measurements for men and women of the apps I have seen. The overall design makes it super easy to use and the ease-of-use of the measurement definitions means questions are answered quickly. I highly recommend.

What’s Next

Now you know what fabric you’re going to use and who you’re making for. What pattern will you use?

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