The Garden Mum
The Garden Mum is a plant identification and plant care iOS app. She helps you come up with a plant care schedule and also reminds you to perform the care tasks for each plant so that your home garden is happy and healthy.
THE CHALLENGE
Design a mobile (iphone) application to provide accurate plant / weed identification along with automated detailed planting guide, maintenance tasks and reminders for each plant.
BACKGROUND
A garden, no matter how small it is, requires a lot of care and maintenance to keep the plants healthy and happy. Nurturing a plant is like nurturing a child: it needs time, attention, nutrition and healing when sick. A plant parent needs the right information at the right time, like plant identification, care tasks, problem diagnosis and solutions and a detailed planting guide.
TIMELINE
4 weeks
This is a capstone project done to practice designing an iOS application
THE DESIGN PROCESS
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RESEARCH
MARKET RESEARCH
Market Research was done twice - before and after the user research. I started with doing a general survey to understand the variety of planting apps available in the market, and the problems they solve. After the user research, I focussed on those gardening apps that were approaching and attempting to solve the problem of plant identification and care. I identified the strengths and weakness of the direct and indirect competitor products.
USER RESEARCH
GOAL
To understand my users in the role of a gardener and their activities and experiences in the field
GOAL
To understand and study the pain points and unmet needs of the users in their existing process of gardening
RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
Avid gardeners who grow various flowering, non flowering, fruit bearing and vegetable crops in different seasons through out the year
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
MARKET RESEARCH
Good Design: Each plant identified result comes with a detailed plant information and care guide
Plant Identification feature should not be tightly coupled with adding the plant in your garden. The user has a choice of only identifying the plant and adding it to the garden if he wants
A super rich and authentic data source for the plants is necessary
Stay away from the feature where data is sourced from the community
The plant care tasks and reminders are pretty basic in terms of experience in the apps I researched
USER RESEARCH
I interviewed 3 users who were avid and active gardeners. Persona Creation, Empathy Mapping and Storyboarding was done in order to empathize with them and understand their needs in depth.
PERSONA
SAMEER
I currently maintain an excel sheet with rows as the the plants and the months as the columns and use color coding to differentiate each task that needs to be done for the plant. I still forget many tasks as I do not have time to follow up!
ARCHETYPE
Passionate and organized gardener with a full time job and a family
PAIN POINTS
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Hunting for quality information amongst several sources
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Timely identification of weeds and pests
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Identifying the problem with the plant and finding the solution for it
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Remembering the schedule for various tasks for maintaining the plant health: water, fertilize, prune etc.
MOTIVATIONS
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Stress relieving hobby
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Happiness from eating our own home grown food
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Understand the hard work that goes into producing your own food
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Engage children in the process of gardening
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Enjoy a happy and well kept garden
UNMET NEEDS
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Automated plant care schedule with regular alerts for each task
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Auto generated planting guide from pre-sowing to post-harvesting phase
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Easily and efficiently getting:
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correct answers about what is wrong with the plant
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variety of solutions to solve the problem with the plant
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Sudden / Unpredictable weather changes: notifications + suggestions
EMPATHY MAPPING
DOING
What does a typical day look like for Sameer?
Going to work for a full time job ~ 8 hours per day
Gardening
Reaching out to other gardening enthusiasts online with questions
Spending time with family
Making trips to the nursery to buy soil, fertilizer etc.
Checking on the plants to see if they are doing well and if need any maintenance task
Helping around the houses / doing household chores
Researching online for questions pertaining to the plants
SEEING
What is Sameer's environment like?
Very busy with multi tasking between work, family and the garden
Occupied with searching for information online about his plants and the garden
Occupied with manually double checking the schedule he has created to take care of his plants
THINKING AND FEELING
What are Sameer's hopes, dreams or fears?
What is important to him?
“My spreadsheets and notes are all half-baked products. I cannot follow them or keep them updated throughout the year”
“All this is too much to remember, I have to be on top of everything, every single time”
“It has suddenly become so chilly. Should I take the curry leaf plants inside?”
"Never miss the fertilizing, pruning, watering schedule"
HEARING
What is Sameer hearing from people around him that influence him or whose opinions does he value?
This is not a weed. Do not remove it.
"The fruits are not diseased. They are sunburnt."
You've missed the sowing season.
“These are grubs. They are the June bugs’ larvae. They will completely destroy your produce”
“These are aphids. They will go away as the season changes. They are harmless. Just spray some vinegar and neem oil and they will fly away”
“The soil you have put even though cheaper is lacking many nutrients. You will have to fertilize it thoroughly”
You should have pruned it in the Spring
PROBLEMS DEFINITION
PROCESS
FIND THEMES
Cluster learnings into themes
GENERATE INSIGHTS
1 theme = 1 or N insights
PICK TOP 3-5 INSIGHTS
TRANSFORM INSIGHTS TO HMWs
PICK TOP 3 HMWs
FINDING THEMES
FINDING THE RIGHT INFORMATION
Looking for information online is time consuming
Combing through a lot of information in order to find quality information
I've to go hunting for information
I do not trust the information source of the planting apps out there
I get so many opinions when I reach out to the community
Finding good information is hard
Many times the community gives out amateurish information
I've to browse through so many videos
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND DIAGNOSIS
I need something that'll identify the weed and the pests before its too late
Not only identify but provide different methods to control it:
chemical, organic
I'm regularly faced with issues and questions like:
Why is this plant not growing well?
Why are the leaves curling?
Why is the fruit size so small?
What are the brown spots on the fruits?
Whats wrong with my plant?
There are too many possibilities of what can be wrong: a disease, lack of nutrition, improper weather seasonal issue etc.
PLANT CARE SCHEDULE AND NOTIFICATIONS
Remembering the fertilizing schedule is a big problem
The fertilization schedule changes based on the typeof plant and fertilizer
You need to know when to prune and how much to prune
Many times I miss the timing of the task
I need to be on top of every task
It will be very helpful to get notifications about each step of the process - e.g. prepare soil bed, get the seeds / plants, start planting etc.
I currently maintain an excel sheet with rows as the the plants and the months as the columns. I use color coding to differentiate each task that needs to be done for the plant
It'll be very helpful if a complete planting schedule gets generated and I get alerted every time a task needs to be done
It is painful and error prone to manually keep checking the schedule
THEMES
Finding the right information
INSIGHTS
The source of the information must be of the highest quality and authentic e.g. botanical / agricultural institutions
Segregating different sources of information to create a single data source that serves as a universal set will prove to be beneficial.
The source of the information must be clearly conveyed to the user
The segregated information must be free of redundancy and duplication
It is important that adequate information is presented in a to-the-point manner
Plant Health: Problem Identification and Diagnosis
Users struggle with correctly identifying the issue with their plant
Users find it difficult to identify pests and weeds on a timely basis
Users want know different solutions in order to solve the problem, especially organic solutions.
HMWs
How might we identify sources of information of the highest quality?
How might we segregate different information sources to form a universal set?
How might we convey the sources of information in a clear way?
How might we make the universal data free of duplicate information?
How might we present segregated information in a detailed yet to-the-point way?
How might we help the users to easily and correctly identify the problem with their plant?
How might we help the users identify pests and weeds before it gets too late?
How might we provide the user with different solutions, especially organic to fix the problem with their plant?
Plant Care Schedule and Notifications
Users need hand holding and guidance regarding maintaining a schedule for the regular care tasks:
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what tasks need to be done
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when they need to be done
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how much
Plant care changes based on various factors like the type of soil, potted plant vs. plant in the ground, plant propagation method, type of fertilizer etc.
Users need to be alerted in case of any unpredictable, irregular event e.g. weather changes
How might we alert the user in advance in case of irregular events?
How might we offer personalized plant care based on the very specific planting conditions ?
How might we provide guidance to the user regarding the regular plant care schedule that needs to be done to maintain healthy plants?
SELECTED PROBLEMS
How might we provide guidance to the user regarding the regular plant care schedule to maintain healthy plants?
How might we convey the sources of information in a clear way?
How might we offer personalized plant care based on the very specific planting conditions
IDEATION
PROBLEMS
How might we provide guidance to the user regarding the regular plant care schedule to maintain healthy plants?
IDEAS
For each plant, provide an automated and complete schedule of what tasks need to be done, when and in how much quantity
Reminders: Notifications / alerts that will remind the user to perform every task in a timely manner
Provide a detailed planting guide that that guides the user and answers the FAQ from the pre-sowing to the post-harvesting stage
How might we offer personalized plant care based on very specific planting conditions?
Auto detect as much as possible e.g. soil, direction
Ask for additional information from the user that helps generate a personalized care routine
How might we convey the sources of information in a clear way?
List the main sources of data on the app's landing page
Project the richness and authenticity of the data
Make a point about the segregation algorithm and the technology that powers this app
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
INTERACTION DESIGN
TASK
Add a plant to your garden and generate care tasks and reminder for the same
USER FLOW
WIREFRAMING
Whimsical was used for creating low fidelity wireframes for the task at hand. All the wireframes can be viewed here:
VISUAL DESIGN
Just as mother takes care of her children and nurtures them, the Garden Mum takes care of the plants. The Garden Mum is also a common name for the flowering plant Chrysanthemum. When I thought of this name, I found it very meaningful and suitable for the context and very unique when compared to other apps in the market.
The visual design is based on the colors and patterns of Chrysanthemum.
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGN
AN INVITING BEGINNING OF THE EXPERIENCE WITH LISTING OUT THE MAIN DATA SOURCES
WELCOME to a vibrant and inviting landing page.
LAUNCH SCREEN
As per the the Apple design guidelines there is a launch screen. A launch screen appears instantly when your app starts up and is quickly replaced with the app's first screen, giving the impression that your app is fast and responsive.
SOURCES OF DATA AND INFORMATION
The users are presented with the main sources of data projecting the richness and the authenticity of the information that this application can provide.
ONBOARDING
The on-boarding screens walk the user through the features the application has to offer. There is also an option to skip or opt out of this flow at any given time. Thus, the user is not forced to go through the on-boarding screens. The same information is available through the help section of the application.
MY GARDEN
Plants can be added to your garden by either taking a picture and auto identification or through searching through the encyclopedia.
Once the plant is added to the garden, the app walks the user through auto generation of tasks and reminders.
IDENTIFICATION RESULTS WITH DETAILED INFORMATION
Each identification result has helpful information like the picture gallery, basic information as well as a detailed planting guide. The source of the information is provided.
If the user decides that none of the results match the plant, she has an option to submit a photo to the Mum team to take a look at it offline and help in identification. Also, the user can try to look for the plant by browsing the encyclopedia.
OBTAIN CUSTOM INFORMATION FROM THE USER TO DEVELOP A PERSONALIZED PLANT CARE PLAN
As a first step of creating the care tasks and routine for the plant, the user is asked a set of questions that will help in generating a personalized care routine for the plant.
The user can choose to bypass this step and not provide any additional information. In that case the care tasks will be generated as per the general information about the plant.
The user can go back and add those details any time in future which will lead to an auto update of the tasks.
This functionality is clearly communicated to the user and nothing has been left to user guesswork.
PLANT CARE TASKS AND REMINDERS
Plant Care Tasks and Reminders are auto generated by the application.
TASK DETAILS
Each task has details pertaining to the specific conditions the plant is being grown into as provided by the user.
TASK SCHEDULE
The user can go ahead and change the frequency of the care task. The visual design of the date picker, time picker and frequency follows the latest design guidelines provided by iOS.
PRODUCT PROTOTYPE
FUTURE FEATURES
FEATURES DISCOVERED AS A PART OF USABILITY TESTING
Multiple Users Scenario - multiple users taking care of the same garden
Information Sharing
Information Sync
Integrations of the reminders with the phone calendar
Growth and health tracker: Take pictures of the same plant periodically to track is growth and provide guidance
FEATURES ALREADY DISCOVERED THROUGH THIS PHASE'S RESEARCH
Plant Illness Diagnosis and Solutions
Plant Encyclopedia with Search Functionality