Product
Responsive Website
Timeline
1 month as solo student project for Designlab UX/UI bootcamp
Problem
Solution
High-fidelity Wireframes
My role
UX/UI designer
Caring for house plants is often harder than expected.
Looking after plants can seem scary if you’re new to it, or have had a bad experience in the past. Being a “plant killer” is becoming very common nowadays as more people turn to house plants to make their homes feel warmer and more alive.
Unfortunately, even when the owner is willing to put in the extra effort, the plants sometimes end up dying and we don’t know why.
It can be extremely frustrating and discouraging for all plant parents out there.
Sprout is a platform that helps plant parents take better care of their house plants.
Whether you are a newbie or a plant specialist, Sprout will be an amazing source of knowledge.
It allows the user to take a quiz to discover which houseplant fits perfectly in their environment and then provides all the information necessary to care for their new plant babies, including reminders to water them when needed.
User Interviews
For my competitive analysis, I analyzed 4 popular websites and app claiming to help people take care of their plants.
Overall, all 4 of them bring valuable information about plants and how to handle them but they could benefit from some key improvements to enhance the user experience.
I noticed that none of them offered personalized recommendations of house plants suitable for the user and the user environment.
None of them allow users to directly buy a plant via their platform either.
All these missing elements create an opportunity to make an even better product that could benefit more users.
Main Page Title Design Change
I changed the title design to differentiate it from the tags on the previous page
Competitive Analysis
User interviews were conducted to helped gain knowledge on stress and pain points. These were the main takeaways:
5 out of 5 thought that caring for plants can be very difficult
All participants were interested in personalized plant suggestions and care advice
3 out of 5 had a negative past experience caring for houseplants
All 5 of them admitted that they are not sure where to turn to when looking for reliable information on plant care
Based on the trend in my affinity map, I divided the collected insights into the following groups :
Experience with plants
Pain point and challenges
Need and desires
Community help
This gave me a better understanding of the issue and helped me create my persona.
Persona
Annabelle, a 32-year-old fashion designer in Paris, recently moved into her dream apartment.
Despite her busy work and social life, she aims to create a welcoming home environment by adding plants, overcoming a fear rooted in past failures.
Her goals include learning proper plant care, gaining confidence, and building a support system for her plant journey.
Annabelle needs clear instructions that suit her hectic schedule, as well as guidance on choosing plants adapted to her living conditions.
Her main pain points involve uncertainty about watering and fertilizing schedules, loneliness in her plant care journey, and frustration over her lack of knowledge.
Annabelle’s Journey
Design
Sketches
I started with deciding on which flow I wanted to test then moved on to sketching low fidelity ideas to later create a mid fidelity wireframe on Figma. It was then time to decide on the branding before finally working on the high fidelity wireframe and prototype ready for testing.
Task Flow
Mid-fidelity Wireframes
2 major improvements in my design
The goal of the usability tests were to assess if the product was easy to use, to understand how the users navigated the product and to gain insight on the overall feel of the product. These were the main takeaways:
All 5 participants responded well to the visual design and said that the website was organized and easy to use
The task flow chosen was well received and all 5 users had no real issues completing the tasks
All 5 of them thought the flow and the questions asked made sense to reach the goal of finding your perfect plant and adding it to your wishlist
All 5 testers agreed that this was a fun and useful platform that they would want to use in real life
One user found the header typeface a little hard to read
One user was confused about the hierarchy as the snake plant title looked like the tags that were featured in the previous screen
Based on various feedback from usability testing participants as well as my mentor, I iterated my design which resulting in 2 main improvements:
Usability Testing & Iterations
Section Title Design Change
I changed the title to make it clear it wasn’t a button
The Final Product
The Style Guide
Conclusion & Lessons Learned
Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way with this project :
Empathy is key! Developing empathy for my persona Annabelle was essential to designing a relevant experience. By stepping into Anna's shoes and understanding her pain points and challenges as a first-time plant buyer, I was able to create a useful platform that offers guidance and support. Empathy-driven design leads to more meaningful and engaging user experiences. Always keep the user at the centre of everything!
I’m a bit of a minimalist and designing this website comforted me in the idea that keeping the user interface simple and intuitive is key to a great user experience. It all contributes to a positive user journey and it is exactly what we are after as product designers.
Next steps
Focus on the online store and find the best way to have plants delivered to your door while keeping them intact.
Develop the community aspect of the platform by finding ways to create engagement.
✨ For work inquiries (or for a little chat), do email me at: m.mabounda@gmail.com ✨
Thank you for reading !
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Thank you for reading ! 〰️