Project Context

Background
Owning a plant is not only a financial investment, but an emotional investment as well. People get very attached to their plants which can lead to a traumatic experience when they die. Many individuals express interest in owning houseplants, but they lack the knowledge, guidance, or structure required to ensure proper care of the plants. In addition, worries of plants that are toxic to pets discourages inexperienced plant owners from having both plants and pets.

How can we encourage the purchasing of houseplants while ensuring current and prospective plant owners know how to take proper care of their plants by applying appropriate instructions to allow their plants to thrive?

Goal
The goal of this project is to make an plant care app that encourage people to own houseplants, and also identify the barrier of purchasing plants and finding solutions to overcome it.

User Research

The first step in the project was to learn more about existing plant owners and potential plant buyers. We are also trying to find the answers for following research questions.

• What are the challenges the users are facing in plant care?
• How does the preference for specific types of house plants vary across different age groups?
• How can people have plants without conflicting with their pet’s safety?

• How do certain lifestyles (traveling a lot, busy schedule) act as a barrier to owning and taking care of plants?
• How do misconceptions about plant care affect plant ownership?

Interviews and Surveys
Our research was collected through a series of 1:1 interviews of 11 participants who are existing plant owners and potential plant buyers. In addition, the participants were sent a brief survey that they completed before their interview. The survey provided basic demographic information, and helped shape the direction of the interview. The interviews were conducted over Zoom to utilize the automatic transcription feature. A total of 11 participants interviews were conducted. Each interview lasted between 20-40 minutes. At the time of the interviews, ten participants lived in South Florida and one participant lived in Minnesota. The participants ranged from 24 to 67 years of age.
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Building Empathy
We established two persona profiles using the quantitative and qualitative information from the survey and interview responses.
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Empathy Map‍

After researching the user empathy maps we came up with the three key insights
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• Users want to properly care for their plants, but get confused about which extra materials to buy such as plant food, moisture thermometers, and bigger pots.
• A lot of people don’t have any structure or organized routine when it comes to tracking the care for their plants
• Users care for their pet’s well-being and prioritize that over plants that could cause harm. Most pet owners do research before buying plants and try to keep their plants out of their pet’s reach.

Ideation

Sketches
In the ideation process we were developing, and refining ideas to address the user's needs and create an effective and delightful user experience that solves our users problem more effectively. Designing a new and innovative solution required us to brainstorm not only the design but how we would introduce this new flow to users. We explored different solutions and sketched out the user flows.

Brainstorming
In the ideation process we were developing, and refining ideas to address the user's needs and create an effective and delightful user experience that solves our users problem more effectively. Designing a new and innovative solution required us to brainstorm not only the design but how we would introduce this new flow to users. We explored different solutions and sketched out the user flows. Then we discussed and decided the most feasible solution for our users

1. Based on the type of plant and geographical location, we will suggest a plant care schedule. Users will receive a message when it is time to buy pest control, fertilizer, or a bigger pot

2. The user will receive notifications when it is time to care for their plants, and they have to check off that they completed the task

3. For existing plant and pet owners, they can input the pets and plants they have. If there are any conflicts, they will receive a pet warning which plants are dangerous.

Digital Wireframes

As the initial design phase continued, we made sure to base screen designs on feedback and findings from the user research. Using the completed set of digital wireframes, then we created a low-fidelity prototype, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.

We conducted rounds of usability studies. Findings from the prototype testing helped us to guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The testing study revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining. Here are all the findings we got from usability studies:

1. Make the Font Size Bigger
Based on the type of plant and geographical location, we will suggest a plant care schedule. Users will receive a message when it is time to buy pest control, fertilizer, or a bigger pot.

2. Revamp Pet Warnings
‍Users felt the meaning of the pet warning icon wasn’t clear and was hard to understand. The warning icons have been updated to better convey their meaning.

3. Change taskbar flow
‍Users Before the hierarchy for subtasks was missing in daily task bar and users are having difficulty to understand the subtasks. The indent on the tasks should make it more clear that certain tasks belong to a specific plant‍

4. Revamp Adding a Plant Photo
‍Users wanted more options for adding a picture of their plant. Some users wanted to add their plant without uploading the plant picture. The updated add plant page gives users options to scan plant with AI, take picture with their phone, or upload picture from their phone

5. Add Today’s Tasks to Weekly View
‍Users wanted to see task details in the weekly view. Before it was only number of tasks in week view. Now we added today’s task and upcoming week task details in the week view

6. Make Chatbot More Clear
‍Users were confused by the chatbot button; they didn’t realize that it would lead them to an AI chat

Final Design

Our final design encompassed three main opportunity areas – plant care tracking, pet safety and structured plant care schedule-for our users. We updated our schedule task bar with more detail information, make the font size bigger, change the pet warning icons and add more effective plant care details.

Reflection