Greener: A plant diagnosis app
Project Overview
Length: 2 Months
Background: Greener is a conceptual mobile app that helps users to identify when their houseplant is sick. It also provides users with information on how to best take care of them so that they thrive. Easy-to-understand design, clear navigation, and attention to details help make this app feel easier than reading through dozens of articles about plants.
Role(s): UX Research, UX Design
Research
User Research
It was easy to assume that only people who own a large variety of plants and know a lot about gardening would be interested in this app. But with a bit of research, I realized that it may be the opposite. Some people just aren't born with green thumbs, but that doesn't mean they can't learn!
User Persona
Meet Zareen, our user persona for this project! She’s a college student busy juggling her internship, her studies, and her responsibilities as a new plant-mom. As a newbie, she doesn't even know exactly what kind of plants she’s raising, nor does she have any knowledge about plants in general. Zareen represents users that lack experience with gardening and also don’t have a lot of time on their hands.
Zareen
User Persona Profile
Age: 22
Education: 4th Year University Student
Hometown: Bruges, Belgium
Goals 📋
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Decorate her apartment with real plants
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Grow her own vegetables
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Learn more about gardening
Family: 2 sisters
Occupation: Project Management Intern
Likes: Coffee, pickle ball, Sonny Angels
Frustrations 😞
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Doesn't know why her plants keep dying
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Has trouble remembering to take care of her plants
“I finally got my first apartment and received a ton of houseplants as house-warming gifts. I’m low-key terrified about killing all of them.”
User Journey Map
The following user journey map follows Zareen as she tries to find answers for her sick plant. By imagining how Zareen would navigate her problem, I focused on how convenient this app had to be.
Like a lot of us, Zareen would try to find solutions online first, maybe even with vague searches like "plant with long leaves started browning why?" After sifting through dozens of pictures, articles, and blogs trying to find her plant, she downloaded Greener as a last resort. I realized that a lot of users may similarly download this app frustrated, looking for quick, reliable answers. By analyzing Zareen's feelings I identified her main pain points to keep in mind.
Pain Points
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Our user is overwhelmed when there are too many results with unfamiliar words.
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Our user is doubtful when they aren’t sure if the results are about her plant.
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Our user is stressed when they realize they have multiple plants to take care of.
Problem Statement
After reviewing the user journey map and Zareen's pain points, I was able to focus on the following problem statements:
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Users who are new to plant care may be overwhelmed by complex or jargon-filled information.
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Users need specific, actionable advice to trust and rely on the app.
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Users need a way to motivate themselves to take care of their plants and see it as more than a chore.
Goal Statements
Our Greener app will aim to be easy to understand for users new or experienced, as well as a reliable source for diagnoses when a houseplant get sick. It will also provide a source of motivation for users to continuously keep track of their plants.
Development & Design
User Flow Map
Before starting on the prototypes, I made a basic user flow map to help me plan the different decisions the user will likely have to make to complete the main task.
While the actual user flow of the finished design differs from the diagram, this was helpful for figuring out the important screens of the product.
Paper Wireframes
I started out with paper wireframes for quick iterations and to get the ideas flowing. I was able to sketch around 6-8 basic wireframes for each screen in the user flow map, and an additional screen for the user to see while the data would be submitted for diagnosis. After all the iterations, I sketched out the final versions with the designs that would be made into digital wireframes.
Digital Wireframes/Mid-Fidelity Prototype
I transferred the paper wireframes to digital ones through Figma. I added more detail and refined some features so that the wireframes would be easier to interpret for usability testing.
Usability Testing
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Research Questions
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How long does it take the user to get health results for their houseplants?
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What can we learn from the user flow?
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Participants
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4 people total
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1 male, 3 female
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Ages 18-70
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Methodology
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10 min per participant
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United States, in-person
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Moderated usability study
Users were asked to perform two tasks on the mid-fidelity wireframe: diagnose the issue with your houseplant, add the scanned plant to a collection.
It took most users less than a minute to complete the first task, but 3 out of 4 participants said that they wished that the feature was easier to access from anywhere in the app. 2 participants voiced frustrations while taking pictures as they were not sure how many were needed for an accurate read. Participants also noted that the diagnosis results felt too long and struggled with adding the plant to their collection.
Final Product
High-Fidelity Prototype
Conclusion
Success & Failure Metrics
Although no usability tests were done with the hi-fidelity prototype, the success and failure metrics would be as follows:
Success:
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Frequency of feature usage
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Correct diagnoses/plant identification results
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Positive reviews
Failure:
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Misclicks and mistakes
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Wrong diagnoses/plant identification results
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Negative reviews
What's next?
This was my first case study, so looking back there are a lot of things I'd fix. Next time, I'd devote more time to researching ways to stand out from the competition. I would also aim for more consistency in the app design.
While I mainly focused on one feature the app would offer, I would have loved to design screens for getting community help or editing the virtual garden collection. Greener as a case study has so much potential and definitely worth revisiting in the future!
Home & Health
Based on the usability test results, I wanted to make the home and health screens as inviting as possible. I wanted it to be simple so that new users would be able to find the main feature offered by the app quickly.
Camera
For the AI technology to produce accurate results, it would be important for the user to submit clear photos.
So I designed the camera portion of the app to be as helpful as possible, with tips, and retake options.
Diagnosis
By providing simple explanations and visual aids, I wanted the results page to be easily skimmable.
The option to add the scanned plant to a collection is grouped with the preventions section so that users can associate the two together.
My Garden
With a list-view and gallery-view, users are able to keep track of their virtual plant collection.
While one is more aesthetically pleasing, the other provides more information at a glance.
