Sprout

Process

Initial Hypothesis

People love plants in their homes, but have difficulty keeping them alive.

Problem Statement

How do we help users keep their plants alive?

User Research Insights

Through user interviews, I learned that plant owners typically know a plant’s care needs when they bring it into their home. As a result, a new line of questioning emerged:

• How does the plant community interact with technology?

• What are they doing with it?

• What is motivating them?

Through these questions I learned that users browse social media, find plant inspiration, conduct Google searches for more information about a plant they saw, then purchasing decisions are usually made for convenience.

From these findings, a revised problem statement and user persona.

Problem Statement (Revisited)

How can we give users easy access to plant inspiration and information?

Competitive Analysis

Although there are many platforms and social media that cater to plant lovers, competitive analysis revealed that:

• The apps are bloated with superfluous features.

• Their UX does not follow the user journey and the ways users are leveraging technology.

Ultimately, it’s time-consuming to sift through social media for relevant content, then search for information to determine whether a plant is a good fit for a user’s home.

Proposed Solution

To create a centralized place that brings together the entire user journey: plant discovery, research, purchasing, and care. In one product, provide users answers to the following questions:

• What plant do I want?

• Can I keep it alive?

• How will I keep it alive?

MVP Determination

Through the user interviews and competitive analysis, a list of potentials features for the app emerged. Through a prioritization matrix, an MVP was determined.

The essential MVP features were:

• Plant search database

• Plant information and care instructions

• Ability to add plants to a user profile

• A user-generated feed of plant imagery

• Links to external sites to complete a purchase

Sitemap

To answer the three main questions:

1. “What plant do I want?”

2. “Can I keep it alive?”

3. “How will I keep it alive?”

Three points of main navigation were created:

1. Search: a list of plants with care information

2. Discover: a newsfeed of plant-inspired content

3. Garden: a place for a user to store plants to reference easily later

UX Design Process

• Translate user interviews and competitive analysis findings into an IA, site map, and user flow.

• Conduct a card sorting exercise with users to solidify the user flow, nomenclature, and IA.

• Use the results from the card sorting exercise to design low-fidelity wireframes.

UI Design Process

• Determine a visual brand.

• Use this branding to create high fidelity UI designs.

• Put together a prototype to illustrate the flow and interactions.