Leafi
Leafi is a mobile plant application that helps plant lovers identify, maintain, and care for their plants through a digital greenhouse system that includes community, articles, reminders, and tips, and a personal ask bot assistance.
The Project
Leafi is mobile application that was created with 2 UX Designers. My role was present in the entire UX process from inception, to research, to user interviews, usability testing, prototyping to a deep focus on design systems in creating visuals.
Duration: 3 months
Methods: Competitive Analysis, Surveys, Affinity Diagraming, User Stories, Customer Journey Mapping, Site Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping
Tools: Figma, Figjam, Google Jamboard
The Challenge
During COVID, there was a growth in people who became “plant moms”, and “plant dads,” in addition to new plant owners before the pandemic. The new crowd of planters found themselves interested in creating a more aesthetically pleasing and wholesome environment.
“ During Covid my friend gave me a plant. From then, I was interested. ”
However, maintaining indoor plants can be complex and disheartening as each plant requires different care needs. The goal was to provide a mobile application for plant owners to find easily understandable and engaging tips and interactions to caring for their plants.
The Design Process
Research
Competitive Analysis
To get a better understanding of our competitors, we did a competitive analysis on 6 companies trending for plant care and tips. (Florish, Planta, Blossom, Seed to Plant, YouTube and Pinterest)
Surveys and User Interviews Insights
The survey was creating through google surveys where we received 90 responses. We also conducted 5 user interviews to get a better understanding of the expertise level and pain points of our users.
Quantitative
• 74.4% of our participants want to learn more about plants
• 48% of participants search online when something is wrong with the plant and 32% give it more water
• 78% of participants said they have attempted to save a sickly or dying plant
• 78% of participants said they would have benefited from information in regards to saving the sickly and dying plant
• 58% participants would consider downloading an app for plants while 30% of participants chose maybe, if they saw a value
• 80% and up navigate to a mobile or web platform to search for plant information
Qualitative
We asked the users what type of features they would be interested in and received:
• Plant catalogue
• Watering schedule
• Light sensor
• Plant identifier
Target Audience
Our target audience are Millennials but the youngest age is 18 to 40 years old.
Defining our User
Affinity Diagram from User InterviewsMy teammates and I used Google Jam, which was a simple tool to synthesize our data from user interviews. We interviewed 5 individuals.
Key Takeaway and Insights
Our user interviews were from age 28-37 who all own plants. We were able to synthesize our data to different categories such as their behaviors, preferences, features, and barriers.
Barriers
“ My biggest struggle was over watering. I didn't like dirt in the beginning and didn't like sticking my hand in the first to check. ”
“ There are some plants that are weird. Bought a plant and died in a week. ”
“ Particular plants like the Fiddle-leaf fig plant. It says don't overwater it but then don't keep it dry. Not sure when I need to water it! “
Motivation
“ Would like an app that finds a way to remind me that it's there and for what it needs. “
“ When you have one plant and it grows strong, you feel like mother nature, and you start buying more. “
Customer Journey Map
Narrowing down the Persona
Identifying the users problem
As a novice planter and self care guru, I need engaging features that guide me on how to nurse my plants so that they may flourish and learn therapeutic ways to learn and implement plants for health and wellness benefits.
Creating User Stories
As a plant owner, I need a simple way to keep up with all my plant’s maintenance.
As a busy professional, I need a way to receive alerts and notifications for quick reminders.
As a millennial, I want to be able to gain access to what plants certain influencers have and where to get it.
As a Millennial, I look for tools to help make my day to day life easier.
As a novice planter, I need feature that instructs me on how to nurse my plants if they fall ill so I can prolong their lives.
As a self-care guru, I look for ways to implement cleaner air practices for health benefits.
As a self-care guru, I try to find ways to improve my mental health.
As a Plant owner, I need to be able to identify my plant by taking a picture of it or scanning if I am not able to search for it.
Divergent concepts
Sketches to Wireframing
After my team and I were able to identify the problem statement, we moved to divergent concepts where I focused creating a home screen that shows a carousel of the users plants along with articles and pictures populated from their interest, a plant profile, onboarding questionnaire screen, a plant hospital focused on care tips, a community screen and point system screen for gamification to repurpose motivation for the user.
Converging our Concepts
My team came up with alot of unique different design concepts and features to think about. One of the biggest questions we asked was, “how do we keep users engaged?” What features are the most important?
As we narrowed it down, we wanted to explore plant care reminders, a sort of plant AI bot or character, a thorough onboarding questionnaire to personalize the users experience, a plant library collection, the plant profile, plant discovery through filter option, and community.
Wireframing
Moving forward, I built out wireframes to showcase what a mid-fidelity screen would look like. From here, my team and I made several iterations while converging design ideas.
During the ideation phase, my teammates and I wanted to explore gamification. Our biggest question was how do we keep users engaged? Gamification was an idea that we wanted to explore. However, while sorting through our notes and feedback and converging out ideas, we decided to move in a different direction to tackle users' pain points.
Onboarding Questionnaire
Plant Profile
Home Screen
Plant Hospital /Bot
Community
Point System
Site Map
Usability Testing
We conducted usability testing on 7 users through a recorded zoom session and tested them on 15 different tasks.
My team received several recommendations such as:
• User commented that they don't think it’s very beginner friendly since they don’t know what their climate is or what plant types exist even
• User dislikes how camera is the only option for adding plants
• User mentioned the “add to nursery” button looks too small to have text
• User Questioned the wording of “all”
• Users want more options from auto fill on the bot, not only about issues but maybe include suggestions to what plants to start with or etc.
Insight and Key takeaways:
• My team mates and I concluded that onboarding was heavy on questionnaires and instead of focusing on 100% personalization of the landing page, to focus on informing users on how to navigate the app.
• Wording was key to changing how users understood the app
Solution(s)
App Guide: To enlighten the users about the functions and benefits of the app during onboarding process to share clear guidance
Plant identifying feature
Users can personalize their experience by adding their plants on onboarding. It alters how the landing page will look by adding features and articles that the user would most likely view.
Personalized Landing Page
Landing page shows plants in need
Plant Profile
The plant profile shares information about the plant and its necessities to stay strong and healthy.
Plant Tips and Alerts
Once saved in plant collection, the mobile app will give tips and alerts on plants in need.
Discovery
The user can discover and learn about different categories of plants, including finding quality articles.
Discover
Collection and topics of plant information
Plant Collection
The Plant collection is a digital version of a greenhouse. It allows user to view all their plants or in different rooms.
Plant Bot
The Plant Bot is a unique feature that allows the user to have personal assistance to their plant’s needs. The Plant Bot will send details of the care tips for a specific plant in their collection.
Add to your collection
Users can discover new plants while adding them to their collection.
Final Thoughts
The important part of visual design is to create balance, rhythm, and harmony. White space, typography, colors, down to spacing all maters.
During this project, a heavy focus was set out on visual design, interaction design, and information architect.
Next Steps
My future recommendations would include both testing and research:
• Explore and research on how this app could further educate through the discovery pages
• Further customize Ask Bot to show plant images
• Customize how users could schedule and receive alerts for plants needing care