Client:
PlantO
Plantcare app
Client
PlantO
Year
2024
Scope of Work
UX/UI
Location
Los Angeles
PlantO is an app designed to optimize plant care for plant enthusiasts through clear tips, instructions, and reminders.
.png)
The Problem
Plant enthusiasts need daily plant care reminders because due to the lack of knowledge and systematic approach they risk their plants dying in a short period of time.
The Goal
Our app will let users simplify their plant care which will affects users that do not have the proper gardening skills and knowledge by allowing users to receive clear care instructions for the health of their plant. We will track effectiveness by tracking the number of improved plants.
My Responsibilities
Conducting user research, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating an designs and responsive design.
Research
User Interviews
To perform user research I conducted user interviews with plant owners to explore all the ins and outs of their plant care routine, determine their pain points and frustrations. I was going into this research with an assumption that my app would mainly be used by young adults, predominantly females in their twenties but turns out there was more to my user.
I conducted five interviews, asking my interviewees questions around their living situation, why they like to have plants in their home, how they currently manage the care of them and whether they have any frustrations with this.
My interviewees were in these situations:
- A 24-year-old UX designer living with three housemates. About 20 plants in the house but 5 or 6 not his. Likes looking at the plants but finds them a chore to look after, often forgetting to water them.
- A retired couple living in a house with a large garden. Both keen gardeners with plants inside the house and in the garden, including fruit and vegetables. Generally care for them well with few problems.
- A 32-year-old software developer living in a flat with her partner and cat. Owns two plants bought as gifts that don’t require much care and generally do well, except when the cat digs them up.
- A 31-year-old architect living in a flat with one housemate who is rarely there. Owns two plants. Deliberately looks for plants that are easy to care for because he’s aware he doesn’t know much about plant care.
- Early 30s couple with 3-year-old daughter, living in a house with a garden. Plant care is a hobby for the husband who finds it therapeutic. Daughter enjoys feeling and smelling the flowers, and sometimes pulls them up.
Themes derived from the research
- Plant care is a hobby
- Plant care is a chore
- Plant care is often shared between members of the household
- Plant care is often informal and judged on looks
- Not remembering to water and lack of plant care knowledge are most common problems
- Plant care can be a problem when going on holiday
- Those who enjoy plant care will try to find information where they lack knowledge, or experiment
- Those who don’t enjoy plant care know they lack knowledge but don’t want to seek it out
- Children enjoy the garden and helping out with plant care
Pain Points
User Personas: Anna
Anna is a a novice “plant mom” who needs a quick and easy fix when her plants are not doing well to identify the issue and follow clear steps to resolve it and have her plants thriving again.
User Personas: Angela
Angela, as a mother of two and a full-time teacher, needs daily plant care reminders so that she does not have to worry about forgetting to water and fertilize her plants.
User Personas: Owen
As a beginner plant lover, Owen needs daily plant care reminders to simplify his plant care routine so that he can buy plants of different difficulty levels, not just stick to the easy to care for ones.
Hypothesis
I hypothesized that having regular automatic plant care reminders would allow plant owners to stay consistent with their plant care routine and therefore keep their plants healty adn thriving.
Ideation
Competitive Analysis
The initial step in my research was to understand successful patterns in current products and missing gaps in unique values. I explored 8 different products and narrowed down to 3 top competitors, including Planta, Blossom, and PlantIn. I analyzed the good and bad of each competitor, and performed the points of analysis on: on-boarding experience, homepage, features, filter system.
User Flow
Wireframes
.png)
As the initial design phase continued, I made sure to base my decision making on feedback and findings from the user research and keep the pain points in mind.
Lo-Fi Prototype
Using Figma, I created lo-fi working prototypes from my wireframes to be used in usability testing. Above, I displayed User Journey 1 where a user selecs a plant from My Garden and set us automatic care reminders.
I fleshed out the UI sketches, created lo-fi wireframes, and got down the clickable prototype for validation testing. We conducted validation testing with 5 users, and found out a couple of issues need to be adjusted.
Usability Study
Introduction
- Title: UX Research Study - plant care app
- Author: Kseniia Kolupaeva - UX designer, kseniia03050@gmail.com
- Stakeholders: UX Design Google Certification Course
- Date: 03/20/24
- Project background: We are creating a new plant care app to help users care for their house plants more efficiently. We need to find out if the main user experience of setting up plant care reminders is easy for users to complete.
- Research goals: What design problems are you trying to solve for the user and/or the business? How will the results of the research affect your design decisions?
Research Questions
- How long does it take a user to find the right plant and set up automatic reminders for its care?
- What can we learn from the user flow, or the steps that users take to set up reminders?
- Do you users find the app easy or difficult to use?
- Are there any parts of the user flow where users get stuck?
- Are there more features that users would like to see included in the app?
- How easy is it on a scale of 1-10 is it to set up a reminder for a new plant? What can be improved?
- Where did the users face difficulties while completing the user journey?
- Are there multiple points of entry to achieve the user journey goal?
KPIs
- Systems Usability Scale
- Time on task
- Conversion rate
- Search vs navigation
Methodology
- Unmoderated usability study
- Location: USA, remote (each participant will complete the study in their own home)
- Date: sessions will take place on April 1 (normal business hours) and April 10 (after hours)
- Compensation: $25 Target gift card for participating in the study
Participants
The primary targeted audience consists of three main groups. The categories are: 18 to 55 year old, plant parents who stay in a small living space, students or working professionals who have transferable jobs or relocation and also plant lovers.
Affinity Mapping
Insights
One common observation that was valid for 3 out 5 of the participants in my usability study came was that they clicked on the "Remind" instead of fthe "Repeat" button. This obseravtion clearly indicated that users needed a better cue for where to click for recurring reminders. This insight needed to be addressed before the other two to prevent user confusion and avoid any unnecessary click in the user journey.
Mockups
After validating our Lo-Fi prototype I made iterations to my design, and moved into Hi-Fi phase. I created Hi-Fi assets for the user flow including home page, explore page, plant added overlay, and scheduling reminders.
Hi-Fi Prototype
As can be seen from the prototype above I iterated on the user feedback and incorporated all three of the Round 1 findings into the latest version of he hi-fi prototype.
I created separate section on the homepage and My Garden page for different sites, such as kitchen , bedroom, and balcony. I also added an option for users to save their plants under preferred names; and I optimized the reminders to be recurring automatically, as you save a plant to the collection you just need to toggle on the ones you'd like.
View: PlantO hi-fi prototype
.png)
