APPROACH

4 week (20 hour/week) design sprint.

Research, Define, Design, Test were all allocated a week with a human centered design approach to reduce risk and uncertainty. 

Informed by the research, three personas were created capturing the various stages of the user journey with gardening. While they shared many needs and frustrations, it became apparent that the app would need to have the flexibility to keep all users engaged.

• The Beginner: Grateful when the plant stays alive.

• The Novice: Has a number of plants, but relies heavily on guess work and looking up information when things go wrong.

• The Hobbyist: Understands the needs of their plants through a lot of trial and error and enjoy sharing what they learned with others.

DEFINE

Reflecting on the research, I identified the following opportunities;

• Care reminder tool to reduce cognitive load

• Quick reference to when things go wrong to avoid frustrating searches

• Use common language - people are not looking to learn scientific names in order to have a thriving plant

• Plant Identifier; people don’t remember the name of the plants

• Inspiration and guidance on plant placement; room & lighting conditions

• Tips, tricks and tutorials on gardening basics to improve skill level

• Include a social aspect; people like talking about their plants

• Badges for plant care/plant, ownership/expert level

• Link to expert advice, local nurseries and plant suppliers

The challenge in this design sprint was to focus my attention on a realistic first release. By creating a list of ideal features, I prioritized each one until I settled on an achievable goal; building your personal plant collection linked to reminders, suggested care and inspirational resources.

I worked on the visualizing these features by developing a site map, task flow and user flow simultaneously in order to form a better overview and understanding of how all of the components would work together.

DESIGN

During the research phase, I also started mood boarding reference from both plant and task tracking apps, looking at design patterns for inspiration.

The time restraint meant focusing on the task flow of adding a new plant to the users collection and informing the key screens for the sprint. Working quickly with pencil and paper, I was able to get an overview of the app and make changes both to the flow and visual language, looking to create a balance between the flow, visual nature of the app and educational aspect.

Faced with designing my first app, I began by referencing the iOS style guide of the iphone X to create a solid base to work from. This allowed me to place the navigation with confidence.

BRAND & UI DESIGN

Imagery was key and I wanted to continue this drive to create a calming and soothing experience; an antidote for the growing anxiety trends revealed in the research. The research also revealed the users desire to use gardening as interior design element which highlighted the lack of sophistication in the designs of the competitors.

Like a home, each user has their own unique collection and I wanted this to shine through. By keeping the colours relatively neutral and complimentary to various shades of green, I chose grey and blue as the brands colours.

Rolling out the branding across the wireframes demonstrated that the plants colour and texture really shone through. This first version was used to create a high fidelity prototype in inVision for usability testing.

TEST

Usability testing came late in the process due to the time restraint and priority to have a high-fidelity solution at the end of the sprint.

Focusing on my persona: the novice gardener (in the middle of the three), I conducted usability testing with a small group hoping to validate my design choices and highlight pain points in both the user flow and design.

The interviews were conducted in person, allowing me to observe their reactions and body language, in addition to the screen and words they spoke. The participants were asked to perform three tasks;

• Add a new plant to their personal collection by taking a photo

• Reviewing their care schedule and marking a task as complete

• Locating a plant’s information to determine whether it was pet safe

From the raw data, an affinity map helped isolate the key issues that were were high in severity and frequency. 

The testing revealed that the user liked the flexibility of adding a variety of reminders and recommendations specific to the plant.

An unexpected result was to see all of the uses struggle with marking a task as complete. Instead of swiping the screen, a design pattern seen in many tools, they first tapped before trying the swipe. Speaking to the participants further about this, it was uncovered that they were looking for more information on the task and anticipated further details to pop up.

A prioritized list of changes were made on the high fidelity prototype as seen below.

CONCLUSION + NEXT STEPS

As more people look to incorporate plants in their homes, Urban Botanist offers a companion to guide the user through the care process, learning to keep plants alive and grow confidence in their skill level and try new things.

To complete the first release, I would look at building out the tutorials (including when things go wrong), achievement badges and user profiles.

Most importantly there would be more testing. Ideally, testing would have started with the paper prototype in order to have faster iterations and evolution of the product. As it stands, when testing the high-fidelity prototype, I received some reluctance to comment on something at that stage.

Beyond this release, this project offers further development, allowing users to connect directly through an online community, creating an avenue for asking questions, sharing their experiences and forming supportive social networks.