GreenGuardian is an application keeping plants well with monitoring and remote controller from a distance.
Role
Product Designer
Product Designer
Skills
Wireframe, Prototyping,
User Research, User Interfaces,
Brand Identity
Wireframe, Prototyping,
User Research, User Interfaces,
Brand Identity
Team
Solo
Senior school project
Solo
Senior school project
Duration
10 weeks
10 weeks
The initial problem discovery began from my personal experience. Every time, coming back NYC after visiting Korea🇰🇷for 3 months for vacation, I found my tomatoes dried up, and it felt like my effort and love has been wasted. It made me realize there must be others experiencing the same struggles to mine.
Solution & Project Goal
Arouse ownership of plants with direct visual interaction, leveraging a mobile-first approach for accessibility and simplicity of task performance to enhance user engagement using IOT without disturbing vacation.
Impacts
The survival rate of plants left unattended during vacations increases by 80% compared to previous instances where owners relied solely on traditional methods or neglect.
01 Research
-> White paper research
How people prepare before going on a long trip?
Interview Findings
Target Audience :International students, frequent business travelers owning pet plants traveling for over 2 weeks.
Pain Points 😭
20s and 30s have limited gardening experience and are busy during trip therefore, they forget about plants during trip and almost give up.
New Findings
Most people have grown edible plants such as tomatoes, herb, green onions, which indicates the needs for specific care tip for these type for plants.
Prefer a mobile app for easy accessibility during trips.
20s and 30s have limited gardening experience and are busy during trip therefore, they forget about plants during trip and almost give up.
New Findings
Most people have grown edible plants such as tomatoes, herb, green onions, which indicates the needs for specific care tip for these type for plants.
Prefer a mobile app for easy accessibility during trips.
Problem
Users have no control over plants while being away from home. They may lose ownership of plants while on vacation and struggle to track past work or grasp overall plant information.
Design Approach
Using IoT for intuitive visual interface that simplify tasks performance to foster a responsible plant ownership experience.
Final Solutions
-> Key Features & Prototype
Indirect care & Streamline Task Performance
Remote Controller with Front-Facing Screen
- Care their plants remotely with live camera feed and controller.
- When pressing button, users observe task being acted.
- Simply check plant’s condition without navigating into another page.
Engage Users During Trips
Documenting with Plant Journal
Expressing emotions through words is a powerful method to feel connected.
- Helps to remember experiences in the journey and celebrate achievements.
- By personalizing, it engages users during trips.
- Directly adding highlights to their profiles for display.
Tracking Plant Life Cycle and Task Progress
Calendar & Tasks
Calendar allows to track their plant's life cycle history, including planting, harvesting, and any losses and evaluate their monthly gardening performance.
Task-focused page allows to track past, present, and pending tasks, and provide easy access to tasks in a single step, enhancing workflow efficiency.
Overviewing progress
Task Management Dashboard
- Tasks, Plants, Harvest sections are in single-screen dashboard to overview tasks, plant’s status and harvest schedule.
- Support to stay updated and grasping progress at a glance.
- Harvest section is designed for whom growing edible plants.
Process
Features AnalysisAnalysing features of competitors
I examined various plant care management applications features and read real user feedback of their liking and suggestions to improve which allowed me to develop features for my app. I focused on 'From Seed to Spoon' which aligns with my vision that also supports growing edible plants.
Analysing features of competitors
I examined various plant care management applications features and read real user feedback of their liking and suggestions to improve which allowed me to develop features for my app. I focused on 'From Seed to Spoon' which aligns with my vision that also supports growing edible plants.
Finding improvements on existing applicaitions
-> Can’t track past task and have to go every pages to see.
-> All features are task focused.
-> Can’t overview all plants’s tasks and condition at once.
Closer examination on ‘Task Feature’
-> Can’t track past task and have to go every pages to see.
-> All features are task focused.
-> Can’t overview all plants’s tasks and condition at once.
Market opportunities
After observing various apps in the market, I've positioned GreenGuardian as a distinctive plant management app. It stands out as an action-oriented and advisory platform, integrating with hardware devices like monitoring and automated watering system particularly in remote settings.
Positioning application
After observing various apps in the market, I've positioned GreenGuardian as a distinctive plant management app. It stands out as an action-oriented and advisory platform, integrating with hardware devices like monitoring and automated watering system particularly in remote settings.
02 Ideate
-> User personas, Brainstormg Design Direction & Solutions, Journey map
Based on target audience,
Meet our user persona, Lily
Structure
I developed an architecture informationand sitemap to visualize the structure and flow of new app.
03 Design
-> Wireframe, Prototype, User testing, Design iteration
Before developing further,
Target Audience:
International students, frequent business travelers owning pet plants traveling for over 2 weeks.
01 Watering plants with controller
02 Tracking activities
03 Checking plant’s condition
Usability Testing
Target Audience:
International students, frequent business travelers owning pet plants traveling for over 2 weeks.
Key flows
01 Watering plants with controller
02 Tracking activities
03 Checking plant’s condition
After usability testing, major improvements are...
Implementing monitor feed upfront
❌
“ Not sure what to focus with huge amount of text”
✅
-> To prioritize plants, filter on condition
-> Visualize the progress and condition
-> Use interactive feature: “Monitoring Feed’ to eliminate friction to check another page.
Intuitive design for controller
❌
“ Buttons seems dysfunctional for mobile application.”
“ I prefer to see plants being watered while watering. “
✅
-> Layout the buttons task by tasks
-> Fixated the feed to enhance action recognition.
Reorder of content priority
❌
“ Most visit dashboard to do tasks, so I'd rather start by finding tasks.”
✅
-> Replaced task section first to lead user’s action.
-> Visual chart to recognize process at glance.
-> Only necessary info about the plants’ condition
UI Design Guideline
Through Greenguardian, I learned...
- Maintain consistent user experience and UI design across the entire application.
- Utilize user research materials to gain insights into user needs and provide tailored solutions.
What I will do differently,
- Conduct thorough market research on monitoring software. (ex. dog monitoring, parental control, home monitoring applications
- Develop a strong design system before proceeding to further development.
- Design dedicated space for community learning within the platform.