Potigo is a mobile prototype completed in my Interaction Design l course. The aim of Potigo is to help plant owners care for and manage their plants by setting reminders, providing detailed information about each plant, and generating schedules to ensure consistent care.
Our team applied the Goal-Directed Design (GDD) process in the development of Potigo, with a clear focus on accomplishing the following objectives:
The Goal-Directed Design (GDD) process enables our team to define user needs and goals while ensuring alignment with stakeholder business objectives, user requirements, and product domain constraints.
Given the ongoing pandemic, this project was accomplished remotely, utilizing the virtual platform Discord as well as the online whiteboarding tool, Miro
Goal-Directed Design, a methodology developed by Alan Cooper, encompasses six phases that center around fulfilling users’ objectives and requirements while also considering business constraints. The process starts with the Research phase, where deep research is conducted to gain a thorough understanding of users and stakeholder needs. In the Modeling phase, personas are developed based on the research findings. Next, in the Refinement stage, user, business, and technical requirements are defined. In the Frameworks phase, frameworks are designed to outline how the product will meet users' needs. Finally, in the Refinement phase, a prototype is built and the process is iterated to achieve the desired outcome.
To ensure that our mobile app is designed with a strong foundation, research is a critical component that provides our team with concrete information and reasoning for our design decisions. This research process allows us to gain a qualitative understanding of our potential user base within the product domain. Our team conducted a Kick-off meeting, literature review including market research and technology reports, competitive audits, and user interviews to achieve this goal.
Our team convened virtually using the Discord platform to conduct a Kickoff Meeting worksheet, which served as a substitute for traditional stakeholder meetings. This allowed us to efficiently organize and follow crucial steps in the GDD research phase, such as stakeholder and user interviews.
Due to the fact that this project was completed within a classroom setting, we did not have access to actual stakeholders to discuss the direction of Potigo with. Instead, our team took on the role of stakeholders, where we discuss on the overall objectives of Potigo, who our target users might be, and potential revenue streams for the app.
After careful consideration, we established the following criteria for our project:
The literature review is a crucial step in our research process, providing valuable insights into the product domain. By analyzing current trends, knowledge, and documents related to the product domain, our team gains a comprehensive understanding of the user's needs.
While conducting our research, we delved into not only plant care apps but also broader topics such as productivity and organization. By focusing on plant care, we gained valuable insights into the tools, issues, and diseases that indoor and outdoor plant owners face. For instance, we discovered that choosing the right pot and understanding a plant's characteristics are crucial in plant care. Furthermore, users find it helpful to have access to descriptions and tips on caring for their plants to achieve their goals. Our literature review findings informed our user interview questions and aided in developing a streamlined list of questions.
To create an app that offers an improved user experience and stands out from other apps, it was necessary to conduct research and understand the current market offerings. We found that many similar apps charged users for access to certain features, which we identified as a major drawback. To address this issue, we aimed to create an app that provided users with full access to all features while also generating revenue for the app. This approach would offer users the resources they needed without requiring them to pay for access. We focused our audit on plant care, organization, and color theory.
Through our research, we discovered that each app has a simple and effective way of reminding users when to water and care for their plants. These reminders can be customized, providing users with a touch of individuality. Moreover, Planta and Vera offer many additional features that provide users with crucial information, knowledge, tips, skills, and tools to better care for their plants. For example, Planta lists scientific information related to the selected plant, such as its gene family, scientific names, and toxicity levels, while Vera offers "How to" information, plant-related articles, and plant care support. These tools individually have many essential features for plant care. Our competitive audit findings are outlined in detail below.
User interviews are a crucial part of the Research phase, allowing our team to gain valuable insights into our users' needs and goals. Due to the pandemic, we faced limitations in finding participants, so we conducted six interviews with students enrolled in our class who had varying levels of experience with plants. Each interview was led by a moderator who asked questions, and observed by three facilitators who took notes and paid attention to any behaviors and motivations exhibited by the interviewees. As part of the team, I took on the role of moderator for one interview and acted as a facilitator for the remaining five interviews.
Our observation from the interviews, participants:
After gathering and analyzing our research, we compiled our findings into a comprehensive document. You can access our research report through the following link. With our research phase completed, we moved on to the Modeling phase, where we distilled our research into personas.
During the Modeling Phase, we created a persona based on the research we conducted in the previous phase, which included the users' behaviors and goals. The persona serves as a model for the typical user of our app and allows our team to empathize with their needs and motivations. By understanding our user's needs and preferences, we can make better design decisions that will ultimately help them achieve their goals. The persona is an important tool for designers as it provides a clear and concise reference for stakeholders to understand the logic behind our design choices. It guides our team's design process and ensures that we are delivering an app that meets the needs and expectations of our target users.
Once we completed our user research interviews, we convened to review and analyze our notes. To make sense of the data we collected, we applied the method of affinity mapping. Starting with an open-ended prompt, such as "What were your main takeaways from the interview?", each team member shared their observations on a Miro board. We then collaborated to identify patterns, similarities, and differences in the behaviors, motivations, and attitudes of our interviewees. Through this process, we gained a deeper understanding of our users and were able to develop more insightful insights into their goals and needs.
To create our personas, we started by identifying key traits and behaviors that emerged during our user interviews. We identified 15 variables or characteristics among our six interviewees. We then organized our notes into these categories and looked for common patterns. Using behavioral mapping, we plotted each interviewee's relevance to each behavior, ranging from beginner to expert in plant care. This enabled us to identify dominant behaviors and patterns or clusters, which helped us form our personas. By understanding the primary user and other potential users, we were able to better target our design decisions and create a more user-centered product.
Our team identified two personas based on the behavior patterns that emerged from our research: Zelda Johnson, who is the primary persona and the target audience for our app, and Mario Antonov, our secondary persona. Zelda is passionate about raising plants for her own enjoyment and learning more about plants from others, which were common traits we found among our interviewees. Mario, on the other hand, shares similar behavioral patterns to Zelda, but also has unique needs. He wants to improve his plant care skills and use his plants for cooking. Although we have two personas, our team will ensure that both of their needs are met without compromising Zeldla's needs.
Zelda expressed a desire for a more convenient way to access information about her plants and receive reminders to care for them. Given her busy schedule, she finds it challenging to consistently tend to her plants. Therefore, the ability to learn and receive reminders simultaneously would greatly simplify her life.
Primary persona goals:
The image below represents our primary persona, Zelda, and our secondary persona, Mario
Once we had created our personas, our attention turned to the Requirement stage which involves developing two key components: context scenarios and a requirements list. Context scenarios are essentially stories that depict how a user persona would interact with a product, outlining their motivations, needs, and goals. Meanwhile, the requirements list is a crucial step in identifying the information and capabilities that our personas would need to achieve their objectives.
To develop context scenarios for our personas, we crafted narratives that reflected their specific needs and motivations. For Zelda, we created a scenario in which she discovers an unfamiliar plant at Home Depot and needs to learn how to care for it. Meanwhile, for Mario, we developed a scenario that centers on his experience of purchasing a basil plant after his local store ran out of packaged basil, and his journey in understanding how to care for it.
We developed our context scenarios by identifying the goals and needs of our personas in relation to plant care. In the case of Zelda, although she has experience with growing plants, she encountered a plant at Home Depot that she didn't recognize. Our app could assist her in identifying the plant, providing care instructions, and setting reminders for watering and other maintenance tasks. By focusing on her experience with the app in this specific scenario, we were able to brainstorm and refine features that would be most helpful to her. As a result, we developed a more organic and relevant narrative that centered around Zelda's needs and goals.
Defining the requirements of our app is essential in determining its functions. Without clear requirements, we risk either neglecting critical features that assist users in achieving their goals or cluttering the app with unnecessary features that impede their progress. By establishing requirements, we ensure that our app provides precisely what the user needs, thereby enhancing their overall experience.
After reviewing the needs of our personas and considering how they would navigate various plant care scenarios, we determined the essential requirements for our app to include:
Once all the requirements are identified, the Framework phase begins with our team starting the wireframing process. The requirement list plays a crucial role in this phase as it guides the creation of low-fidelity wireframes. Building low-fidelity wireframes allows our team to visualize and test early concepts, design ideas, and requirements before investing time and resources into the high-fidelity prototype. This enables our team to streamline the process and focus on creating a polished high-fidelity design.
The primary persona's main scenario, also known as the key path scenario, is the most frequently used path in the app. As such, it should be the most detailed and developed in a prototype. It serves as a representative example of what the primary user would typically do when using the app. This would allowed us to test whether she could efficiently navigate through each function without any roadblocks, ensuring that the app met her goals.
Validation scenarios, or alternative scenarios, represent paths that the secondary persona would take differently from the primary persona or actions that the primary persona may take under different circumstances. Although they may not be as critical as the key path scenario, it is still important to include them to ensure all potential paths and user experiences are considered.
The Framework stage is crucial in creating a solid foundation for the prototype. Skipping this step and moving straight into high-fidelity design may result in overlooking key requirements and prioritizing visuals over functionality. Such an approach can increase the workload and make it harder to achieve an optimized design. After completing the wireframe, we move on to the Refinement stage where we begin building the high-fidelity prototype and conduct usability testing.
During the refinement phase, our team produces the high-fidelity prototype, a sophisticated version of the app that demonstrates the workflows, visuals, and interactions. It brings the research findings to life in a tangible way, providing users, team members, and stakeholders with a sense of how the app could benefit not only the users but also the business as a whole. In this stage, my main responsibility was to prototype and ensure a smooth user interaction with the product.
The high-fidelity prototype allowed us to refine the user interface and experience, incorporating feedback from our usability testing. We made sure that the app met the requirements we had identified earlier and that the design was consistent with our personas' goals and needs. We utilized Adobe XD to transform our wireframes into a high-fidelity prototype and tested it with our target audience. The primary objective of this stage was to design a prototype that emulated the app's functionality and flow, while also ensuring a seamless user experience. Our focus remained on replicating the plant care process of the user within the app.
During the interview process, our participants shared that they preferred a clean and simple interface that wouldn't overwhelm them with too much information. As a result, we opted for a minimalist design approach to provide a more soothing and enjoyable user experience.
During the usability testing phase, our moderator conducted interview sessions with our previous interviewees to evaluate and test the prototype for smooth functionality. Usability testing is a critical step in the design process as it provides valuable feedback, verifies user flows, and tests user interactions.
After conducting the usability testing sessions, our team convened to assess the feedback and identify opportunities for enhancement. The participants' feedback was insightful, pointing out concerns such as font alignment issues in the plant detail screen, confusion around pet toxicity information, and clock section adjustments. The team also received suggestions to refine notification settings and improve the users' plant task and calendar features.
1. Finding the right balance of information
Our primary persona, Zelda, values learning about the plants she owns, while our secondary persona, Mario, is more focused on task management. To address this, we prioritized meeting the needs of our primary persona by providing in-depth plant details, while also ensuring that our secondary persona's goals were met.
We achieved this balance by carefully considering the amount of information provided to both personas, avoiding overwhelming our secondary persona, Mario. We included comprehensive details about each plant species. However, we also recognized that other users may prefer a more visual learning experience, so we incorporated a variety of visuals and graphics. Furthermore, we provided an option to access additional information for those who require more detailed information.
2. Accessing the user's schedules and calendars
One of the interviewees expressed the need for a user-friendly plant and task calendar. To address this, we incorporated a weekly calendar at the top of each plant with color-coded labeling for quick identification. Moreover, we implemented a separate calendar feature that enables users to view their tasks and upcoming events without having to navigate to each plant individually.
3. Notification settings
The reminder settings were confusing for the user, requiring significant modifications to improve usability. We addressed this by changing the flow of the drop down menu on each of the options and ensuring that they match accordingly.
4. Implementing Ad revenue
One challenge we faced was how to incorporate ads into the app without disrupting the user experience. Initially, we considered using banner ads that would appear intermittently, but we determined that this approach would be distracting and detract from the app's minimalist design. As a result, we needed to find alternative ways to generate revenue without compromising the user's experience.
Potigo was developed with the aim of providing a solution for plant owners who struggle with caring for their plants and want to learn more about them. Our team worked hard to designed Potigo with the user's needs and experiences in mind, without any stakeholder involvement. We also considered the business aspect by incorporating ad revenue. The process of creating Potigo allowed us to gain valuable insights into the users' minds and design the app based on their needs rather than aesthetics. Developing Potigo gave me a hands-on understanding of how each step in the design process contributes to the creation of a successful app.
One key takeaway from this project is the importance of asking effective questions during user interviews. By asking more questions, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of our users and their needs. Additionally, during usability testing, I learned the value of taking on the role of moderator and building my confidence in speaking with users. This allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and better empathize with users, ultimately helping to create a product that better meets their needs.
Upon reflecting on our project, there are a few areas where I would focus on improving. Firstly, spending more time on wireframing before moving onto building the high-fidelity prototype would have allowed us to have a clearer overview of the entire flow and identify any necessary changes earlier in the process, which could have saved us time in the high-fidelity prototype stage. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were unable to conduct user testing on the wireframe. In future projects, having more experience now, I would prioritize having our interviewees test the low-fidelity prototype to improve the flow of our design and make adjustments early on. Additionally, in creating the high-fidelity prototype, I would focus on improving the consistency in element positioning and spacing by copying and pasting existing screens for each new element to prevent any unevenness in the app's design. Despite the challenges we faced, I take pride in the work that our team accomplished in creating Potigo within a short timeframe.
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