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Overview
As part of my coursework for INFO4340 (App Design & Prototyping) at Cornell University, this semester-long project involved collaboration with three UX engineers. Together, we conducted user research and analysis focusing on gardening behavior, translating our findings into a coded prototype. The final product was a progressive web app prototype developed using Vue.js and BootstrapVue3. Throughout this project, I honed my skills in code prototyping and learned to integrate engineering considerations into the design phase.
Period
October 2022 - December 2022
My Role
UX Engineer & Designer
QUICK DEMO
Designed for narrow screen
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Target Problem
The current website for the Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners project at Cornell is assessed as disorganized and overwhelming for users. A redesign of the vegetable catalog is essential to enhance accessibility and user-friendliness for gardeners.
User Research
We interviewed 8 users over 2 rounds of interviews:
Exploratory user interview: we interviewed 4 users of varying backgrounds and experience levels regarding gardening. This round of interviews helped us determine our target users and their challenges.
In-depth user interview: we interviewed 4 users from our target user group and gained more insights into their struggles, processes, and approaches regarding gardening.
Insights from all interviews are then extracted and organized into an affinity diagram:
We classified our insights into 11 categories: foundation, struggles, offline resources, online resources, ineffective resources, plant selection, motivation, gardening routines, easy parts with gardening, preferred settings, and ways to assist fellow gardeners. These insights lead us to identify our target users, their goals, user persona, and usage scenarios.
About Our Users
Our target users are novice and intermediate gardeners in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. These users possess some foundational knowledge in gardening, having attempted it several times before. However, they are at a stage where they seek external resources for information on best practices in plant care and recommendations for suitable varieties to cultivate.
User Goals
Discover plant varieties suitable for planting in a specific season based on growing conditions, geographic locations, and gardening efforts.
Access information on optimal care practices, including watering frequency, ideal planting locations, and recommended supplements.
Receive effective and reliable support for addressing unforeseen issues encountered during the planting process.
User Persona
Usage Scenario
Brianna, a recent hire at Cornell University's Visitor Relations Office, is navigating her new life in upstate New York. In an effort to make Ithaca feel like home, she decides to cultivate lemongrass and asparagus at her new residence. Juggling the challenges of relocating, adapting to a new job, and meeting new people daily, Brianna seeks a tool to help manage her responsibilities. She adds her plants to the app's home page, utilizing the generated timeline for timely reminders to care for her plants each day. Brianna also explores the "Care Schedule" tab for a more detailed care plan, ensuring her plants thrive under her attentive care. The app becomes an essential aid in maintaining the well-being of her plants amidst her busy schedule.
Brainstorming
We identified major user goals and brainstormed solutions to each user goal. After that, we voted the best solution to each user goal based on effectiveness, feasibility, and usability.
How might we help users with busy schedules still garden?
Calendar, schedule function
Time commitment noted with plant variety ✅
Reminder (notification on phone), call users?
Suggestions of plants that are easier to garden
How might we help users remember to care for their plants?
Built-in notifications, phone / laptop notifications ✅
Plant tracker / calendar in-app
Syncs with users’ calendar
Send notifications to friend to help remind them
Notification tracking
How might we help users pick out which plants to garden?
Filter ✅
Search bar ✅
Plant recommendation based on user survey about climate, time availability, space (outdoor / indoor)
Automatic recommendation based on users' location and browsing behavior
How might we help users troubleshoot errors encountered during gardening?
Discussion forum / contact master gardener
Search / comment on related posts
Follow experienced gardeners
A compiled collection of helpful resources
Question forum under each plant
Users can respond to other people’s questions and rate reliable responses
Display default instructions for each plant ✅
How might we help users find reliable resources to aid their gardening process?
Verified resources section for plants ✅
Links to verified articles
Verified gardeners badge for master gardeners
If a content creator on our platform has many accepted posts => higher reliability
Like wiki, send information to central (gardeners) to approve of resources / information
Design Iterations
Final Wireframe
Final Web App Prototype
Our app prototype is a minimal viable product that demonstrates what users like Tom should be able to do in the app. It is designed for mobile devices only, because our user research indicates that most users interact with gardening tools using their phones. You can test each feature following this guideline:
Add/remove plants: Please interact with plants that are not tomatoes.
Search plants: Please input the term "tomato" only.
Filter tomatoes: In the dropdown menu control, please select “Northeast” as the growing region, input 6 for the maximum commitment, select "indoor" as the environment, select "small" as the size of space.
Originally, our plan involved developing a discussion forum for users to post plant-related questions and engage with other app users. However, during the attempt to create a code prototype, we realized the impracticality and high cost associated with this feature. Consequently, we opted for a more feasible and user-aligned approach by replacing the discussion forum with an expanded plant care schedule page.
Returning to our user persona, this new feature addresses one of Tom's key objectives in using our application: simplifying the planning of his plant care tasks. Instead of relying on memory to remember when and how to care for each plant, Tom can now access a plant care schedule page that serves as a convenient reminder. This is particularly beneficial for novice gardeners like Tom who may struggle with issues such as overwatering due to forgetfulness or uncertainty about the appropriate amount of water. The plant schedule page is designed to help Tom avoid these common mistakes, providing a valuable tool for his gardening journey.
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