Plant N - Where Plant Care Comes First
Research | UX | UI | Visual Design | Mobile Design
Overview
As a part of my Master's program at DePaul University, I took a Mobile Design class where I designed a Mobile App for plant owner and conducted competitive research and survey study and based on the results developed user personas, user flows and the final app designs.
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Time
10 weeks (Winter 2022)
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Methods & Tools
User Research Methods
Competitive Review, Survey, User Personas, User Flows
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Design Tools
Pen & paper, Figma, Qualtrics
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Practices
Design Thinking, Product Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
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The Challenge
Design an app that enhances the overall health of the plants
I was tasked to define an idea that will be worked on throughout the 10-week course. When I began brainstorming for my project idea, I found that plant caring was one of the hobbies that people got interested in during the pandemic. Therefore, based on that I decided to design an app named "PlantN" for plant owners that remind the users to water their plants and provides them with resources and tips to care for them. The ultimate goal of this app is to enhance the overall health of the plants that the user owns.
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Research
General Research
I begin by conducting general research on the topic and see why it is good for us to have indoor plants and what are the common problems plant owners face while taking care of them.
Studies have proven that plants improve concentration and productivity (by up to 15%), reduce stress levels, and boost your mood [3].
Some of the top problems that the plant owners face are [1]:
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Overwatering plants.
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Keeping the plant in the same pot or planter for years
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Not giving plant's roots regular check-ups
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Not knowing how to "winterize" plants
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Competitive Research
After putting together my initial thoughts and gathering some key insights from general research, I looked at existing Android apps for plant owners and explored the user’s pain points.
Survey
After researching existing apps, I created a survey to understand the experiences of plant owners further, what problems they face and what kind of features they would like in a plant app.
I used Qualtrics to conduct the survey, and the responses were collected from February 16th to February 23rd.
Some of the questions I asked were:
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Why do you like to buy plants?
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Have any of your houseplants died? If yes, what are some reasons they died?
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What are your biggest challenges with it comes to owning and caring for houseplants?
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What methods do you use to track and take care of your houseplants?
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What resources do you use to obtain plant caring advice (issue diagnosis, identification, watering needs, etc.)?
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Are there any challenges or frustrations you face when using any of the above resources? Please explain
Participants Demographics
I recruited the participants via the CDM participation pool and personal connections. To participate in the study, the participants had to be at least 18 years old and must own/have owned a plant.
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A total of 24 people responded to my survey
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10 out of 24 participants were aged between 18-24
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14 out of 24 participants were female
Key Insights: Based on the survey responses, I extracted the following key insights regarding app features:
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A better way to remember each plant's needs and characteristics of care
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A library to look up plants and easily add them to the user dashboard
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Provide notifications to feed and water plants
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Simple and easy-to-use layout for beginners
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Additional way to seek help from an expert
Design Goals
After looking at existing solutions and gathering insights from the survey, I understood the need for an app that allows plant owners to manage their plants better and keep track of their health. Also, the identified themes from the responses enabled me to keep the following design goals in mind when creating my prototypes:
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Make it easy for the users to add a plant, such as allowing them to take a picture or upload from the gallery.
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Provide a calendar feature to track watering
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Have a simple and easy-to-use layout for new plant owners.
Primary User
For this assignment and looking at the timeframe, I focused only on hobby plant owners as my primary user. However, I made sure that my designs worked for anyone looking for a solution to better care for their plants.
Task Flows
After designing my persona, I decided on the two key task flows for my app:
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Add a New Plant
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Log Water for a Plant
User Flows
Next, I decided on the user flow for my two key tasks and the user's path to accomplishing a task within the app.
Lo-Fi Prototypes
Based on the personas and my initial idea, I sketched out my Lo-Fi prototypes for my key tasks.
Task 1: Add a New Plant
In the first task flow, the user will land on a login page and will be asked to log in or sign up for an app. When the user selects sign up, they will be asked to enter basic information and after that, they will land on the home page. From there, they can see the plants in their library and use the “Add Plant” button to start the process of adding plants.
Task 2: Add a New Plant
In the first task flow, the user will land on a login page and will be asked to login or sign up for an app. When teh user selects sign up, they will be asked to enter basic information and after that they will land on home page. From there, they can see the plants in their library and use “Add Plant” button to start the process of adding plants.
Mid-Fi Prototypes
After looking at the user flows and deciding on the path, I converted my lo-fi prototypes to mid-fi, added some color, and then performed usability testing on key features of the application.
Usability Testing
For my usability testing, I recruited the participants via personal connections. To participate in the study, the participants had to be at least 18 years old.
Participants Demographics:
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A total of 7 people participated
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4 out of 7 participants have owned a plant before.
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6 out of 7 participants were female.
I used Maze.co and asked the users to complete the two key tasks and then after completion, I analyzed the results.
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Task 1
You have just bought a new plant for your apartment and want to make sure that this plant stays healthy. You download and register on PlantN App and want to add this plant to your dashboard to keep track of its health and gain any useful information.
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Results
Overall Direct Success Rate of this task was 71.4%
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Task 2
You have been notified that you need to water your plants. How would you go about seeing the schedule and logging water for your plant?
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Results
Overall Direct Success Rate of this task was 83.3%
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From usability testing, I found that most participants had issues finding the “Add Plant” option in Task 1. So, keeping that in mind, I strived to improve my interface for better recognition and make it clear for users how they can add plants to their library.
Also, some participants provided the following suggestions when asked “Is there anything you like to suggest for the app?”
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Have a more simple way to know how to water plants, possibly adding an icon to the water button
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Ability to switch between list and calendar view to see which plants need to be watered on a specific day.
Hi-Fi Prototypes
After completing first click testing and gathering results, I created my Hi-Fi prototypes.
The main homepage elements include the add button to start adding a new plant to the user's garden, a droplet button to log water for a specific plant, and a section for “Plant Care” tips.
In the bottom navigation, we have the following elements:
Add Plant: This button will lead users to add a new plant to their garden.
Home: This option leads the user to the homepage.
Plant: This option will show all the plants that the user has added
Calendar: To see the calendar and tasks that the user has to do for their plants
Three dots: This option was not fully designed, but my idea was to add settings for the app and the option to browse a plant library in it to get more information on plants that the user does not own yet.
Project Reflection
Challenge
The main challenge for me was properly allocating my time to different phases of the design process. I made sure that I spent the same amount of time on each step. Managing my time well for a project like this is a valuable experience that I gained.
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Future Direction
While I was able to test a few people, I believe more user tests can uncover different problems in the design and can further lead to a more inclusive design. Also, I was unable to explore the option to add a plant library, where users can explore different plants that they don’t own and learn about them and decide to buy them.