It takes a village to raise a plant
Plant care is considered to be the ultimate tool for self care. It improves our mindfulness, breathing, stress levels, and is highly rewarding. That’s why it is becoming an increasingly popular hobby and it is my job to create a centralized plant care hub & community.
Problem
Plant parents struggle to manage plants alone.
As a plant parent myself, I’ve noticed how many times I have asked my friends for plant care advice or tips. This raised the question of where do plant parents whose friends don’t share the same hobbies go?
The Solution
Community is Crucial
User Interviews
I’ve conducted interviews with 8 plant parents / lovers of various skill levels. I’ve asked them the questions below to find common themes & trends on what they feel like would maximize their plant care potential. I then organized my data through affinity mapping.
Research Questions
1)Tell me how you got into plants?
2)What types of plants do you typically care for?
3)What has been the most difficult part of your plant care journey?
4)What are some plant specific apps and websites you use?
5)What kind of plant resources would you benefit from?
The Main Insight
Many of my interviewees felt discouraged & stuck when caring for their plants due to the lack of information, lack of support & encouragement.
Based on the trends in my affinity map, I’ve noticed having a plant dashboard as well as a place to share plant advice & stories will make plant care an enjoyable experience.
Initial Design
Iterations
3 major improvements in my design
The Final Screens
The Final Product
Conclusions & Lessons Learned
1) Be open to redesigning and let ideas go. Through this process I learned how important it is to make sure that the features I want to incorporate as a designer don’t get in the way of fully designing for user needs & pain points. There were more features that I personally wanted to include and even had wireframes, but I felt that it would take away from the user flow and only make the user overwhelmed.
2)Regularly get feedback. As it is just me working on this project, it was important to have potential users or other plant enthusiasts give me their feedback at various stages of this project. Getting their feedback allowed me to see small issues in design or details rather than assuming the user was able to figure it out.
