Plant Doctor
Product design of a B2C Mobile app for amateur gardeners
Many unskilled plant growers struggle to keep their plants alive. When a plant has a problem, the plant owners look for solutions, but occasionally they forget the name of the plant and receive confusing information from social media.
A B2C app that helps plant growers diagnose and treat their plants' problems.
I joined several Facebook groups to better understand how people seek advice when they have problems with their plants. I chose the groups based on their size and daily posting rates.
This research assisted me in defining the product's target audience and selecting user research participants. It also helped me in determining the product's tone and voice.
A classic question consists of three parts:
Emotional, informal, friendly
I interviewed 6 participants who participants grow plants at their home, to learn about their habits and challenges with growing plants, and how they deal with problems related to their plants.
"I mostly seek advice when there is a need or a problem. I'd rather consult with friends (instead of posting on Facebook)."
"I once asked in a Facebook group, but I received conflicting responses."
"I now have two plants and I don't know what they are"
Based on the user interviews, I created one main persona for my product.
The goal of the market research was to learn how other products help users to solve problems of their plants.
I reviewed three main products: Plantix, NatureID and Planta. I chose those products by their Google Play rank, the number of downloads and the similarity to my product.
Main conclusions:
Based on the user flow, I created multiple low fidelity wireframes for the main user flow. I started with simple stketches, and then added more details.
I used Figma to create high fidelity wireframes of the main flow. I also created wireframes for secondary flows like chat with a professional and adding a new plant to "My Plants" list.
I created a simple prototype of the main flows on Figma, and then tested them using Figma mirror.
I executed the user tests in a face-to-face meeting with four participants, each participant separately.
Before the meeting I wrote down a list of tasks the participant should do during the test.
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Users didn't understand the screen's purpose. They assumed it was the camera screen and tried to take a photo of the plant.
I added a "start test" button in all of the onboarding steps, and changed the microcopy. Sliding the screen allows you to move between onboarding steps.
The history screen was similar to the test results screen. When users returned to previous tests, they expected to go straight to the solution.
I made a new view for the history. Users can view a summary of the test results at the top of the screen.
Based on the wireframes, I created mockups for the app's screens: main flow, secondary flow, home page and onboarding process.
The app is intended for amateur users. Therefore I wanted to add some mischief to my design. This principle guided me in choosing the colors, typography and graphic elements (icons, illutrations and images).
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I used Figma to create high fidelity wireframes of the main flow. I also created wireframes for secondary flows like chat with a professional and adding a new plant to "My Plants" list.
One of my research conclusions was that many people treat their palnts like a baby or a pet. I wanted to add some personification to the plants in my product. To do this, I added illustrations for each problem description.
I was surprised by the number of people who volunteered to spend an hour of their time on the user interview. I learned that people are happy to talk about themselves and share their experiences. The interviews were insightful, and they influenceed the choices I made during the project.
Preparing a list of questions before the user interviews helped me stay focused and get significant insights from the interview.
The tasks in the usability tests were too specific. As a result, users completed them easily, and I probably missed some usability problems. I should have given more realistic tasks to get in-depth insights.
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