Crafted to empower users with seamless tools for nurturing
and tending to their cherished green companions
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2 Researchers
2 UX Designers
UX Designer
Lead prototyper
February to May 2021
Adobe XD
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Miro
Visual design
Competitive Research
User Research
Usability Testing
Interaction Design
Prototyping
Moderator
While existing plant care apps have primarily centered around setting reminders and plant identification, they often fall short in providing comprehensive features. Many essential functionalities, such as accessing detailed plant information and creating personalized care schedules, are often restricted behind subscription models. Our innovative solution aims to bridge this gap by introducing non-intrusive ads as a revenue model. This approach ensures that users can enjoy all features without the hindrance of subscription barriers.
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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. I will explain each of these phases in more details below.
The app will empower users to cultivate healthy plants effortlessly. With streamlined features for setting customized schedules, receiving reminders, and accessing concise information, our design enhances user satisfaction, promoting organization, and ensuring consistent app engagement.
Our team applied the Goal-Directed Design (GDD) process in the development of Potigo, with a clear focus on accomplishing the following objectives:
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 criterias for Potigo:
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.
In our research, we explored plant care apps and broader topics like productivity and organization. This approach provided insights into tools, issues, and diseases faced by indoor and outdoor plant owners. For example, we learned the importance of choosing the right pot and understanding plant characteristics. Users also value access to descriptions and care tips to achieve their plant care goals. Our literature review findings guided our user interview questions and helped create a focused list.
To enhance user experience and distinguish our app, we researched existing market offerings. Many apps charged for certain features, a major drawback we aimed to overcome. Our goal was to provide users with full access to features while generating revenue. This approach ensures users get resources without payment. Our audit focused on plant care, organization, and color theory.
In our research, we found apps offering effective plant care reminders with customizable options, adding a touch of individuality. Planta and Vera provide crucial information, tips, and tools for plant care. Planta includes scientific details like gene family and toxicity, while Vera offers "How to" guides and plant-related articles. These tools encompass essential features for plant care.
User interviews in the Research phase provided valuable insights into users' needs and goals. Due to pandemic limitations, we conducted six interviews with students from our class with varying plant care experience. Each interview had a moderator asking questions, observed by three facilitators noting behaviors and motivations. I took the role of moderator for one interview and facilitated the remaining five.
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.
Challenges in establishing a
consistent schedule
Users found it difficult to stick to a schedule or routine
No set schedule
Users were mostly disorganized
Preference of plant type
Interviewees prefers low-maintenance plants, especially succulents
Notifications
Interviewees rely on phone notifications for reminders
Features
Interviewees value community feature such as Facebook group
Information
Interviewees value tips about plants from other plant owners
Miss watering schedule
Interviewees found the most difficult part of plant care is remembering to water their plants
App interface
Interviewees prefer an organized and clean interface
In the Modeling Phase, we constructed a comprehensive user persona, synthesizing insights from our prior research into user behaviors and goals. This persona stands as a representation of our typical user, fostering empathy within our team for their needs and motivations. By delving into the intricacies of user preferences, we empower ourselves to make nuanced design decisions, facilitating the realization of user goals.
The persona serves as a vital compass for our design team, offering stakeholders a lucid reference to comprehend the rationale guiding our design choices. It forms the backbone of our design process, ensuring the delivery of an app aligned with the needs and expectations of our target audience.
After concluding user research interviews, we engaged in a collaborative session to analyze our findings. Utilizing affinity mapping on a Miro board, each team member shared insights prompted by an open-ended question like 'What were your main takeaways?' We collectively identified patterns, similarities, and distinctions in user behaviors and motivations. This process yielded profound insights, enhancing our understanding of user goals and needs.
To create personas, we distilled key traits from user interviews, identifying 15 characteristics. Organizing these into categories and using behavioral mapping, we assessed each interviewee's expertise in plant care. This revealed dominant behaviors and patterns, guiding persona formation. Understanding primary and potential users enhanced our ability to make user-centered design decisions.
Based on behavioral patterns, our team identified two personas: Zelda Johnson, our primary and app's target user, and Mario Antonov, our secondary persona. Zelda is passionate about raising plants for enjoyment and learning, traits common among our interviewees. Mario shares similar patterns but has unique needs—he aims to enhance plant care skills for cooking. Though we have two personas, our goal is to meet both their needs without compromising Zelda's preferences.
The image below represents our primary persona, Zelda, and our secondary persona, Mario
After creating personas, we shifted to the Requirement stage, focusing on two key components: context scenarios and a requirements list. Context scenarios are user persona stories, illustrating interactions with the product, while the requirements list identifies the necessary information and capabilities for personas to achieve their goals.
We crafted context scenarios by pinpointing the goals and needs of our personas in plant care. For Zelda, our primary user, who's experienced but faced an unfamiliar plant at Home Depot, the app could aid identification, offer care instructions, and set reminders. This specific scenario guided feature brainstorming, ensuring a narrative that aligns organically with Zelda's needs and goals.
Clear app requirements are vital for functionality, avoiding the omission of crucial features or unnecessary clutter. By establishing precise requirements, we ensure our app aligns exactly with user needs, enhancing their overall experience. After assessing persona needs and plant care scenarios, we identified the essential app requirements:
After defining requirements, we transition to the Framework phase, initiating the wireframing process. The requirement list guides the creation of low-fidelity wireframes, facilitating early testing of concepts and design ideas. This approach allows efficient iteration before investing in the high-fidelity prototype, ensuring a polished final design.
The key path scenario, representing the primary persona's most frequently used journey, is prioritized for detailed development in the prototype. This focused approach tests the primary user's seamless navigation through functions, ensuring the app aligns with her goals.
Validation scenarios, depicting variations in user interactions, showcase how the secondary persona or the primary persona under different circumstances might navigate the app differently. While not as critical as the key path scenario, including these ensures a comprehensive consideration of potential paths and user experiences.
1. Finding the right balance of information
To meet the diverse user needs, we prioritized in-depth plant details for our primary persona, Zelda, who values learning about plants. Simultaneously, we ensured that the app caters to the task management goals of our secondary persona, Mario.
We struck a balance by tailoring information to each persona, avoiding overwhelming Mario, our secondary user, with excess details. We offered comprehensive plant species information while accommodating visual learners with graphics. Additionally, we provided an option for users seeking more detailed information.
2. Accessing the user's schedules and calendars
In response to user feedback on the need for a user-friendly plant and task calendar, we introduced a weekly calendar atop each plant with color-coded labels for easy identification. Additionally, a standalone calendar feature allows users to view tasks and events collectively, streamlining the experience.
3. Notification settings
We simplified the confusing reminder settings by modifying the flow of the drop-down menu, ensuring alignment with user expectations
4. Implementing Ad revenue
We tackled the challenge of integrating ads without disrupting the user experience. Initially, we explored banner ads, but deemed them distracting for our minimalist design. Thus, we sought alternative revenue-generation methods while preserving user experience.
In the Refinement phase, our team creates the high-fidelity prototype—a sophisticated rendition showcasing app workflows, visuals, and interactions. This tangible representation brings research findings to life, offering users, team members, and stakeholders insight into the app's potential benefits for both users and the business.
In this stage, I designed a prototype to mirror the app's functionality and flow, prioritizing a seamless user experience. To achieve this, I animated the app to simulate the user's plant care journey.
In usability testing, our moderator interviewed previous participants to assess the prototype's functionality. This step is crucial for gathering feedback, validating user flows, and testing interactions.
After usability testing, we reviewed feedback to identify enhancements. Insightful input highlighted concerns like font alignment in the plant detail screen, confusion on pet toxicity info, and clock section adjustments. Suggestions included refining notification settings and improving plant task and calendar features.
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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