GardenFit
An app that will help you to grow and keep your plants impressive
Overview
The challenge of this second individual project for my UX/UI course at IronHack Bootcamp was to design a new app to be launched on both iOS and Android platforms.
In my case, I chose plant care as the topic. I found it interesting to investigate the phenomenon of those who are unable to keep a cactus alive. Why do plants always die? Too much water? Low light? Or just inconsistency?
And sometimes the problem is not in the plant, but in us. Caring for a plant require a responsibility, of which we are not always aware. Having a plant, in fact, is a good way to become more consistent and disciplined, and challenges us to take on new responsibilities to others.
It doesn’t meow when it is hungry, nor does it bark when the door open, and in the end we forget about our plants, especially those indoor. And sometimes, when we have forgotten to water them in time, we make the mistake of watering them several days in a row.
Above all, what a plant needs is care and attention according to the needs we are observing.
The approach
In order to begin my research, I conducted interviews with people who had knowledge about plants and others who did not, and then analysed what other apps are available in the field.
I asked my interviewees, whether they had plants or not, if they could identify them, the type of knowledge they had about how to water them, the type of light they needed, and at what time of year they should transplant them. I also asked if they had a plan to keep them healthy and, most controversially, if they were able to keep them alive or not.
This last question led me to separate my users into two groups:
Knowbie:
The first group were those who knew how to take care of the plants and from whom I took several tips that would help me later as features of my app.
Newbie:
The second group were beginners who needed help to keep their plants healthy and overcome their frustrations.
“I Kill My Plants”
The frustrations of the latter group were: “I am not lucky”, “I kill my plants”, “I water them when I realise that I have forgotten”, and needs like “I do not have a plan to water them, I need one” “I need a step-by-step how to attend them, that is easy to understand” “I don’t know how to attend the plant once sick”, to which I had to find a solutions.
Competitor analysis
For the competitive analysis, I started with a website that named the 10 best apps for the care of your plants and I found a great assortment of apps with different types of approach.
The ones I have analysed are: SmartPlant, GardenTag and Garden Answer.
Gardering Answer
Allows you to add tasks to your personal calendar but it was not very easy to use, more technical content and it had a confusing user flow.
Gardentag
Takes asocial media approach in which you can post a photo of your plant follow other users.
Smart plant
Was closest to what my users needed because you could add your plants and the app notified you about care but you could not adjust it to your preferences and had a formal approach, which gives style advice to users (e.g. plant pot style).
Once I had completed my research I did an affinity diagrams to synthesise my findings and defined my problem statement and user persona.
“Newbie plants owners need a way to get assistant in plant care because their plants do not last long”
User Persona
Alba, 33 years old. Teach arts in a secondary school, she does not find the way to her plants last long that is why she needs help to keep her plants alive and prevent or cure diseases of them.
I was able to define their needs and determine what the app should have in order to find a solution to them.
• Help my user to make their plants last.
• How to prevent and cure plant diseases.
• An irrigation plan that notifies the user.
• Show them how to take care of the plants step-by-step and in a graphic and easy way to learn.
Prototyping Care Solutions.
GardenFit is an app that helps you to follow the perfect care plan for your plants and keep them healthy, See how it works with the following video of my hi-fidelity prototype.
FitGarden App Prototype
With this application user can add plants, identify them with a photo. The application will tell you the characteristics of this type of plant and will suggest a watering plan, choosing when to be notified to water her plant. Also It will reminder you the ways of care of this plant and keep it healthy.
The app was develop to be launched on both Android and iOS, elements like Date picker, Segment control and Top app bar was applied following the alignments of each platform.
iOS and Android app version's: Date picker — Segmented control — Top app bar
The Improvements
During the usability testing I tested 5 users who have plants in their homes, some with knowledge about plants and others who do not, to reveal areas of confusion and uncover opportunities to improve the overall user experience.
To see more about the improvements and usability testing check my post on Medium
My Key Learnings
Seeing how the different parts of the process were articulated (research, prototyping and usability testing) and in turn how others were interconnected (research-Heuristics and CRAP principles) to be able to shape the product from the paper prototype to the high fidelity prototype is the best part I took from this exercise.