Verdure

VERDURE

All-Encompassing Plant Health App

OverviewVerdure is a comprehensive mobile app designed for plant health, offering users a range of features to support their plant care tasks. Unlike other plantcare apps in the market, Verdure stands out by providing a unified platform that integrates multiple functionalities into a single application.
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Challenges
Develop a platform that allows users to manage multiple house plants and simultaneously exchange plant care insights with fellow plant enthusiasts.

RoleTeam Lead, User Research, Visual & Interaction Design
Team5 UX Designers ‍
ApproachGoal-Directed DesignTimelineSpring 2022 (8 Weeks)
Tools
Miro, Figma, Discord, Illustrator, & Photoshop

Problem

Turning a new leaf in plant maintenance

People owning and tending to house plants have existed for millennia, but not everyone has a green thumb. Technology is a part of our everyday life, yet there isn’t a comprehensive app that gives users multiple features required to care for multiple houseplants. Verdure is here to change that. It’s an intuitive app that empowers users to monitor their plant care routines, share experiences with other plant owners, and access pertinent information, fostering a seamless and interconnected community of plant enthusiasts.

Approach

Alan Cooper's design recipe

We followed Alan Cooper's Goal-Directed Design methodology which emphasizes the user's goals through 5 phases of design: research, modeling, requirements, framework, and refinement. This project was completed as a part of my Interaction Design I course.

Research

Understanding the domain

To gain an understanding of our potential users and how they may use our product, I led my team through qualitative research, competitor analyses, and user interviews. We began with our secondary research, asking one simple question:
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What tools do plant parents use to help them take care of their plants?

The goal of our research was to identify the different methods plant parents currently use to care for their plants. As plant parents ourselves, we had various assumptions about what the findings of existing studies could look like, but our initial research still gave us some surprising results.

Click here to view full research report

Analyzing our competitors

We analyzed five major competitors that could compete with Verdure. However, we discovered many apps lacked the features users sought, leading them to download multiple applications for similar tasks. Additionally, we observed that several competitors didn't prioritize their user interface, resulting in a confusing and surface-level experience.

User Research

Interviewing plant parents

Our next step was to speak directly to our potential users - plant owners. We conducted five virtual interviews. The focus was on understanding their information-seeking and sharing habits and assessing how Verdure could align with their goals. I facilitated two of these interviews.
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Our participants provided us with key information that gave us much needed insight:
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“I usually look up reddit forums for specific pant care, but I wish there was a central plant community” - Interviewee 1

“Having 35 plants, it’s hard for me to keep up with plants specific watering schedules, I need a better tool, so I don’t get confused on which plant to water” - Interviewee 3

All participants stated that they use multiple apps that help them care for their plants.
Over 80% of participants stated that they learn best from the plant community from groups on Facebook or Reddit forums.
Participants wanted a intuitive calendar feature that was easy to use and allowed users to track multiple plants watering and fertilizing schedule.

Modeling

Mapping our findings

To gain insights from interview data, I led my team through collaborative Affinity Mapping sessions. Interview notes were categorized based on statements, emotions, and actions, identifying patterns and creating clusters after each interview for an iterative and insightful process.

User Research Interview Affinity Map

Looking for patterns

After mapping our findings, we identified patterns in goals and challenges, categorizing them into archetypes. Behavioral variables were streamlined, validated, and classified, and interview subjects were mapped and plotted on our visual continuum matrix.

Visual Continuum Matrix of behavioral variables

Personifying our patterns

After identifying consistent patterns of behaviors, goals, and motivations, our team ensured the validity and relevance of our persona. We crafted our primary persona, Cassie Howard.

Requirements

Translating user goals to app requirements

At this stage, our focus shifted to translating research findings into user-centric design solutions. We transformed interview-derived goals and pain points into context scenarios, aligning user needs with potential solutions. These narratives grounded our app in users' everyday lives, prioritizing practicality over designer bias. Functioning as a stakeholder, I guided the project scope and ensured features aligned with measurable outcomes.

Requirements Highlights:

Learn from other people in the community
Learn basic knowledge of their plants and identify them
Diagnose plants that are sick and how to effectively treat them
Create a schedule that will help track their plant watering and care schedule

Framework

Sketching the concept

After identifying our app requirements, we moved onto the framework phase. We started brainstorming the framework of the application by sketching some of the features of the application. We focused on the community, calendar, and plant identifier.

Establishing a Flow

Once we completed the sketches, we transitioned to developing keypath scenarios. In our main user flow, users select a trending plant, check their watering calendar, and explore the community board. Validation scenarios encompass any subsequent screens supporting thismain flow. This process culminated in the creation of our initial lo-fi frames.

Low-fidelity wireframes depicting the Key Path Scenario (pink arrows) and the Validation Scenarios (purple arrows).

Refinement

Moving forward with hi-fi designs

During the Refinement phase, we transitioned from low-fidelity wireframes to a high-fidelity prototype. With design guidelines in place, I assigned team members different flows to design screens. We prototyped these screens and interactions, delivering a hi-fi prototype for testing.

Live Prototype

Discover new plantsWithin Verdure’s home page users can explore trending plants, and discover recommended plants tailored to their home’s lighting.

Community in full bloomWith a community feature, users are never more than a tap away to interact with other plant parents.

Smart scanWith Verdure's scan feature, users can identify plants, detect pests, and diagnose plant diseases.

Don’t forget to waterIn the calendar feature, users can set plant care reminders like watering and receive notifications for tasks such as leaf clipping or fertilizer application.

Reflecting back

Things learned as a first time design leader

Outcome
I led my team through the Goal-Directed Design process to deliver an extensive research report, design files, and a final stakeholder presentation. I learned so much wearing many hats throughout this project.

Autolayout, components, and variants are your best friends in Figma. I love them and cannot imagine designing without them anymore.

I learned how to balance out the strengths and weaknesses of each of my team members to ensure everyone was comfortable with their responsibilities with the product. I also challenged each team member to do something new to help them build on their skills.