Take a look at this picture.
What words or emotions immediately come to mind? Bright. Bustling. Exciting. Concrete. Chaotic. Confining. Loud. Dirty. Smelly. Artificial. Stressful.
Now what about this picture?
Peaceful. Quiet. Calming. Tranquil. Liberating. Natural. Real.
Since industrialization, people have long morned their separation from the beauty of nature in favor of the conveniences of urban life. From Thoreau to McCandless, writers and thinkers alike have often touched the need to flee the city in order to forge a closer bond with nature. After all, nature is the ultimate stress-reliever. It helps to center us, to calm us, and to help us gain a sense of purpose. No matter how absorbed we are in modernity, we will alway have a deep, instinctive bond with nature.
Unfortunately, even with all our knowledge about the psychological and spiritual benefits of being surrounded by natural landscapes, the demands of working and modern life mean that many of us can’t simply move deep into a forest or spend as much time hiking in Alaska as we may like. Which is why it isn’t surprising that people have often turned to “greening” their homes as an alternative. After all, if we can’t bring our home to nature, why not bring nature to our home?
Of course, as appealing as the idea may, the reality is that all the incredible benefits of having a home full of plants only works if the plants are actually alive. Nothing kills your serenity like a graveyard of neglected ferns.
So that’s why I created this app. To help people to better take care their plants, to get closer to nature and to find a daily escape from insanities of the urban jungle.
Step 1: Research
I did a Lean canvas to identify the current business problems, goals, hypotheses and potential solutions.
After identifying the current business problems, it’s time to talk to users to confirm the problems, hypotheses and possibly discover more issues and needs that I didn’t think of initially.
I conducted an online survey (quantitive information) and interviews (qualitative information)on people’s plant buying habits. I discovered that people were mainly concerned about the “difficulty of maintenance” and “suitability of their environment ” in terms of whether to get plants or not.
For those that have plants, the top three challenges people have encountered are treating a sick plant, providing proper care and remembering each plant’s watering schedule.
Not all that surprisingly, most people’s concerns were heavily linked and the results also confirmed my hypotheses. Taking into account the discoveries above, these are the MUST HAVES for my Greenthumb:
A comprehensive plant library
an archive of caring tips, maintenance schedules, disease treatments, preferred growth environments, etc
An easy-to-use plant-management system
a system that provides reminders for plant watering schedules, records plant growth, allows the adding of new plants, makes call to actions based on local weather conditions, etc.
Step 2 : Ideation
With these findings and insights in mind, I dove deeper to learn more about my users by building an empathy map, personas, and a user journey.
Step 3: Wireframe
After ideation, it is time to create wireframing and draw user flow to double check the whole process.
Step 4: Design
I used the low-fi wireframe to create a quick prototype on Invision to run tests and receive design feedbacks. With the test results, I received more insight and feedback that allowed me to further refine my app. Afterwards, I move on to moonboard and hi-fi wireframing for final design.
Moonboard
The overall feeling I want to deliver is fresh, clean and hope.
Easter color pallet
Hi-fi Wireframe
Step 5: Prototype
How can Greenthumb actually help you?
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Disease treatment was the most common concern among survey recipients; however, the overarching concern of both plant owners AND non-plant-owners was over how to properly care for a plant. With many plant diseases being the result of too much or too little sunlight/water/nitrogen, etc., it made sense for Greenthumb to emphasize individualistic, customizable care for each and every plant an owner has.
With that in mind, Greenthumb offers plant owners:
1. An easy process for adding plants and creating tasks
To add a new plant in the garden, the user simply takes a picture of the plant, and Greenthumb will automatically run an image identification process. When finished, the app will display photos of potential plant types for users to match from. After identifying the plant, users can name the plant if they want to and choose whether their plant is indoors or outdoors. Plant location is crucial for providing suggested tasks.
Lastly, Greenthumb provides a preset watering schedule for plants based on the plant species and its location. The only manual inputs are the name and the location. Greenthumb does the rest.
2. Local weather coordination
In the default “my garden”, view, the top part is designed to reflect the current weather conditions in your area. This allows users to be aware of the current weather conditions and to respond accordingly.
3. Automatic task suggestions based on weather conditions
For example, a user sets up a watering task that is due 3 days from now. However, it has been raining for the past few days, which means that humidity has been higher than usual. Therefore, the watering task may need to be postponed for a few days or canceled altogether depending on if the plant is located indoors or outdoors.
Likewise, if the UV index is too high, users may need to move their plants indoors or water them more often. Greenthumb will take into account of all these weather conditions and react accordingly.
4. Disease diagnosis and community support
We all know that regardless how much effort we put in, plants still get sick from time to time. To figure out what disease our plants have and what is the proper treatment for it is tricky. With Greenthumb, users simply take a picture of their sick plant that showcases the symptoms. Greenthumb will direct users to the treatment page. This save users a lot of time by avoiding the need for jumping between different websites while researching solutions.
Greenthumb also provides a community platform for all plants lovers to share their tips, concerns, and ideas. When users are in “community”, they first see posts that are related to their plants. Of course, they can explore more options by applying filters, such as sorting by popularity, #hashtags, location etc.
Hope you enjoy my Greenthumb case study. If you have any ideas that you would like to share with me, please leave your comment below, or just give me a clap :) Thanks!
