How I transformed a terrace into a green oasis with a customized vertical garden: A UX case study

8 min readSep 9, 2023

Introduction

As part of the Growth School - UX Design Career accelerator program under the mentorship of UX Anudeep, I was tasked to produce a solution to the problems faced in the terrace area, with a physical product. After some research I found many problems at hand to solve; the problems I chose to solve were privacy in the open terrace area from neighbors and terrace garden taking the space in terrace. The solution was ‘Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace’.

Let’s look at the ‘Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace’ I have designed

Here is my final design prototype of the Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace. As shown in the image below, the product once installed, will restrict the view for people from other side to the user’s terrace, and the green vertical garden will give a feeling of being closer to nature for the user with beautiful ambiance and a clutter free garden.

Let us look at the core problem the reason I designed the Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace

To take a break from the concealed walls of our home we walk to the terrace for some fresh air and some time for ourselves to be in peace. But there are neighbors peeping from their terraces, there is clutter of gardening pots in terrace.

To address the dual problem of privacy and gardening, I crafted a solution to create a ‘Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace’ which addresses both the privacy issue as well as organizing the terrace garden in efficient manner and saving space in terrace. Bonus: This gives a feeling of being closer to nature with lush green ambiance in the terrace.

My journey from identifying the problem in a terrace to designing the Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace

I began with framing a basic list of questions to conduct user interview. Depending on the responses, I kept the questionnaire flexible and impromptu and kept the interview conversational.

I found out one common thing in all the five people I interviewed; everyone uses the terrace to take a break, feel the breeze, and light and be at peace with nature.

With the above insights, I chose to address the two core problem areas, which are privacy in the terrace and space optimization, which will result in bigger terrace space availability with clutter free terrace area.

How I came up with the idea: After defining a list of problem areas, I thought of addressing the shading problem for plants during harsh weather. Or creating a wall mounted collapsible cloth drying stand, which will address the space constraints issue. Then I figured if I address the gardening problem, I could address the privacy & space optimization issue as well. That is when I decided to go ahead with the Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace idea. Which can be easily adopted, cost effective and easy to install, with minimum maintenance.

Let's look at some of the important decisions that I took during the project

In the following paragraphs I’ll explain in each step all challenges I faced and how I made choices and the reasoning behind each choice. Let me navigate you through the process that helped me to produce the solution of creating the Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace idea.

1. The reason I made the user interview more conversational than sticking to the rigid Q&A format:

Let me take your focus to an important decision I have taken while I was interviewing users. Before I started interviewing, I prepared a questionnaire which could guide me through the interviews. After I conducted 2 interviews, I realized that I was getting similar answers from the users, and I was not able to dwell too deeply into the thought process or the journey of the users: The reason was I was just fixated on the pre-decided questionnaire.

That is when I changed the interview process from a fixed questionnaire to following up on the user’s answers-based questions, like conversational/ impromptu, which helped me to get more reaction/insights from the user than before.

2. Here is how I decided on my problem statement actionable:

After diverging and expanding the problem areas of the users, I found ten main problems which need to be addressed.

From the above list of problems and the reasoning, there were a lot of surface level problems the users were mentioning in their responses.

3. This is how I transitioned from surface-level idea to detailed idea to address the root problem:

In this level I used ‘crazy eight’ technique to produce multiple solutions for each problem I had in hand. It was challenging to converge and choose one to solve. I used the method of applying constraints in implementation of ideas to each problem like: Production cost, adoptability, scalability, and usability.

Users who are living in independent houses have issues with privacy and security on the terrace from the neighboring terraces, with no confined space in the open terrace area.

I shortlisted three ideas which could be turned in to workable prototype:

That is when I made the critical decision of addressing the issue of privacy and security, by creating a Customized Vertical Garden for Terrace area, which in effect will de-clutter the terrace from the garden pots, while creating more usable space.

4. Here is how I optimized my prototype design to make it more user friendly:

While designing the prototype the major challenge for me was to create a product which is user friendly with minimum maintenance and DIY product with minimum instructions.

The above prototype was my first shot at the product which is self-explanatory; that how it might look while it is unpacked and how it will look once it is assembled and installed.

5. This is how I amended my prototype based on feedback after testing:

The common question I got from the testing was ‘how to water the plants’; For which I introduce a drip watering system along with water controlling valve, which addresses the watering problem without wasting water.
To add strength to the water pipeline, which is running above the pots, I added a string along for support.
There was concern about the strength of pots holding on to the supporting beam, for which I made the hanging hooks sturdier and broader, and added two additional hooks to hold the below supporting beam along with the current two on top.
Created effective visuals to communicate the above changes in prototype, with numbered legends to guide and define the material used for the product.

Future scope of the project

If I had the funding and resources, it would be fascinating to produce a physical product, test, and launch it in the real market. I’m sure there is a lot of scope to improvise, and while testing in the real world I would get many more constructive feedback to improvise the product.

Let us see what all I learnt while working on the project:

Users are front and center of all that work goes on to build a product like this. There is much more to the story than assumptions/bias we have about the world around us.
To address any problem, we need to go beyond the surface level and to the root of the problem, which helps in creating a solution, which will indeed help a large number of people.
Using double diamond technique to diverge on problems and adding constraints to converge on ideas is the big take away for me, which I’ll use in my future projects, and try to better my skill.

Seeking your feedback to help me improve

Thank you for your time reviewing my case study. I would be happy to know your thoughts and seek your feedback:

Does the case study presentation and the explanation of the process I’ve gone through to produce the final product serve its purpose?
Does any of the section I’ve explained above is too short or too lengthy?
Do you think the product is easy to adapt to any terrace area?

Your feedback will help me advance the product and to be better at my next project. Feel free to comment in the comment section of Medium or LinkedIn. Let us connect on LinkedIn.