Bloom Garden App UX Case Study
Role in the Project
My role in the project as a UX designer is to take ownership of the app’s design, from concept to delivery, along with the other members of my team. My responsibilities included: user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, iteration, and the creation of a final high-fidelity prototype.
Project Duration: Feb 2021 to Mar 2021
Purpose of Project
Home gardens have been an integral part of our local food systems in developing countries around the world. The problem with our working professionals is that in their busy lives it’s not always easy to find time to learn about plant’s needs, and often enough they get home to see them struggle and finally dry out.
We set out to create some solution to deliver a quick and easy way for our people to manage garden in style and discover tips on how to take care of the plants, organize tasks and set smart gardening reminders.
Target Audience
Working professionals /anybody who which to start a home garden.
Design Strategy
I ran design sprints based on design thinking methodology, which includes 5 stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. I eventually created a fully functional app where our people can easily access and manage their garden in their home.
Key Challenges and Constraints
The challenging part of this project was collaborating through this remote communication. I feel that video conferencing takes away from the personal touch provided by in-person meetings. This was a challenging aspect in this pandemic situation.
Problem Statement
Create a medium for novices for the maintenance of their plants/gardens/lawns incorporated with all essential tips and tricks.
Research Conducted
Our first step was to identify what are the problems that real world people experience. We prepared a short survey on this and posted it online for our working professionals to answer. We received ample responses.
Next, we rephrased our assumptions and obstacles into sprint questions. Turning these potential problems into questions makes us easier to track. Our Sprint questions are as follows:
1. How can we design in a way that the information (knowledge) is presented in a concise (or complied) manner to a user?
2. People with only a few pots don't prefer a gardener. But they do need some assistance.
3. People who want to buy/own/grow plants but doesn't know how to do due to lack of skills and knowledge
After discussion, we were able to come up with a simple journey map.
Next Stage involved of formulating ideas and solutions for the problem statement keeping target users in mind. These collective ideas are then sorted and turned to a simple rough user flow diagram.
Sketches and Wireframes
This process begins with initial ideas wireframes then moves to final mock-ups.
High Fidelity Mockups
Final design mockups
User Testing
Usability testing was conducted to see patterns of users’ decision-making process. Users were recruited and put them through the process of our perfectly planned usability tests, keeping track of their comments and their actions by note-taking to keep everything consistent and easy to interpret.
Usability test report was created for the same. Results seem obvious and changes to the product were perfectly clear in our mind
Conclusion
High fidelity prototype for home garden concept was designed. User testing validated the design is engaging and also address the users’ needs.