PLANTLAB

Conducting UX research for a new e-commerce care app for plant parents on iOS

COMPANY OVERVIEW

PlantLab is a new app for an online plant shop. They sell plants, pots, saucers, soil, and more through their online website and social media. They are now looking to develop an app that will support their existing business and allow plant owners to interact with plants via AR/VR technologies.

MY ROLE

This was a team project. I was in charge of leading the UX research and my teammate spearheaded the UX/UI design and interaction design of the app. Even though we each had our tasks, it was important to keep each other informed and collaborate throughout the design process. We held regular check-ins and presentations, generating a productive feedback loop that helped us stay on the same page and keep the process user-focused.

This project was conducted for educational purposes during my academic tenure with DesignLab.

THE CHALLENGE

Plants not only brighten up a home, they also directly impact people’s moods and quality of life. Studies show that users impulsively purchase plants to make themselves feel better.

Even though plants improve the home environment. Many impulse purchases lead to buyers remorse when plant parents realize that the care instructions were not clear. Improper plant care often leads to the plants dying in their new homes.

How might we help users with their plant care routine?

DISCOVERY

INITIAL ASSUMPTIONS: AN AR FEATURE WILL BENEFIT BUSINESS GOALS AND USER NEEDS

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are stunningly hot right now. A lot of businesses are trying to embed the technologies somehow, but the user experience is not quite there. For most consumers, AR and VR are flashy and attractive, but not really useful. In July 2016, when Pekemon Go launched a worldwide craze, it only retained a fraction of its peak user base a few months later. People were initially attracted by the novelty, but they didn't stay.

As with every new technology, we need to find the right usage for it and bring it to customers by solving a problem that they encounter or by providing additional value to their current goals.

Our team was excited to begin gathering data to see if a platform such as PlantLab would benefit from an AR feature integration.

Research:

HYPOTHESIS VS. VALIDATION

Before we started our research, I created a research guide to help us define research goals, assumptions, and methodologies. This allowed us to organize our thoughts, identify which methodologies would be most effective for this type of project, and generate a solid direction/timeline for our research.

Since I was the UX research lead on this project, I developed the document and held a team meeting to discuss our goals prior to starting the research. It was important for us to be on the same page before moving the project forward.
Secondary Research:

UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET

We wanted to gain a better sense of PlantLab's target demographic, user patterns when selecting/purchasing indoor plants, and connections between user and stakeholder needs for app features.

Here’s what we found:

5 or more


plants in a room leads to people feeling healthier and happier
*Wiley Online Library

90%

of Independent Garden Center's marketing is done on social media
*Ibisworld

75%

increase in sales for house plants within the last year
*Statista

58%

of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project
*Wiley Online Library

IDENTIFYING THE COMPETITION

I also conducted a competitive analysis of PlantLab's potential competitors to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

Based on my online research, there were four competitors that I wanted to take a closer look at. Some of these competitors have integrated AR/VR features to their platforms. Many users have commented that these features are frustrating due to technological limitations and unrealistic imagery that lures them into a false sense of the plant's health/aesthetic.
Products I analyzed for the competitive analysis.
Primary Research:

DEFINING OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

After completing the secondary research, it was time to engage our users. The market research revealed that sales are on the rise for indoor plants. We realized that we still had a bit of a gap in our findings: who is our target audience for this platform? We needed to throw the net a little wider in order to gain a better sense of which age group is more likely to purchase plants virtually and utilize such an app.


We decided the best way to get this information was to develop a survey. This would allow us to reach more people in a short amount of time. By utilizing Google Forms, we drafted a quick survey that allowed us to clarify some of our lingering questions.

SURVEY: BOTANY PLANTS LATELY?

By posting to several platforms, we were able to get multiple responses in a short amount of time. We received a total of 39 responses within two days. The criteria for this survey was that participants needed to have purchased a plant within the last six months.

Here’s some key insights we uncovered:

84%

prefer in-store plant shopping over online (15% said they do both)

66%

enjoy physically touching a plant and accessing its health before buying it

58%

buy a plant before knowing
where to place it in their home

56%

listed light needs, water care, and growth expectancy as necessary information for plant care
Our findings revealed to us that Millennials and Gen Zers were more likely to take a chance on purchasing a plant from a virtual platform than other generations. Because of this, we decided to focus our energy on designing an app with this age group in mind.

CONNECTING WITH USERS

After we had a better sense of our user group, we arranged in-depth 1:1 interviews with 5 participants between the ages of 18 – 40, who have purchased a new plant within the last year. We focused on gathering qualitative data to gain a better understanding of their goals, needs, motivations and frustrations. The goal was to collect enough data to determine user patterns.

My teammate and I were both heavily involved in this process with one of us leading the interview and the other taking notes of comments on Miro. This allowed us to be extremely efficient with our time management and allowed us both to have a deeper empathy for our target audience.

See the full interview script here
Research Synthesis:

LETTING THE DATA TALK

Following user interviews, we compiled all of the intel onto virtual sticky-notes. Creating this affinity map allowed us to quickly group commonalities together and better understand behaviour patterns and frustrations within users.

See my full affinity map here

KEY DISCOVERIES

The affinity map opened our eyes to a couple of interesting insights.
Here’s what we learned:
Key Insight 1:

AR technology for plants has limitations

95% of participants said that they find AR technology for ecommerce intriguing but have yet to come across an application that executed it well.
Need: People need to find the technology practical.
Key Insight 2:

People hesitate to purchase plants online

96% of participants said that they are hesitant to purchase plants online due to stock images and not getting a true sense of the plant
Need: People need to feel confident in their purchases.
Key Insight 3:

People want their plants to thrive

100% of participants said they feel a strong bond to their plants but due to impulse shopping habits, they often struggle with taking care of them in their space
Need: People need to purchase plants that will do well in their space.

DEFINE

Empathy Map
I was able to break my findings down even further by utilizing the patterns I uncovered to create an empathy map. This allowed me to connect to Pinners on an emotional level and kept the design process human-centered.
Persona

SAY HELLO TO CALEB

Once we gained a better understanding of user's motivations, needs, and frustrations, we applied all of the findings and created the project persona. This persona is used throughout the design process to ensure that we're designing for the users. Meet Caleb!
Journey Map

SHOPPING WITH CALEB

In order to fully understand Caleb's mindset, it was important to visualize what it would be like to walk in his shoes. We created a journey map by using all of the data gathered during interviews and the survey. Based on this, it became apparent that hesitancy with in-store plant purchases revolves predominantly around vague care instructions.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

In order to create human-centered design solutions with the collected data, our team constructed POV statements using the user insights and needs from the research phase. This allowed us to frame problems from the user's perspective.
In preparation for brainstorming, we developed “how might we?” questions for each of the POV statements. These needed to be broad enough to encompass a wide range of solutions, but narrow enough to set constraints.

With the overarching question on our minds being: How might we make Caleb's experience better as a plant owner? We honed in on three specific questions to initiate brainstorming:

HOW MIGHT WE HELP CALEB...

utilize AR technology practically?

feel more confident with online plant purchases?

find plants that do well in his home?

COLLABORATIVE BRAINSTORMING

After defining the HMW questions, we began brainstorming possible solutions for each by conducting a couple of Crazy8 exercises. The intent for this activity was to generate as many ideas as possible without yet considering technical feasibility. We did this activity together through a Zoom call. After each round, we presented our ideas to one another. This was really helpful and allowed us to see a few things more clearly.

Crazy8s Reflections

This activity allowed us to quickly explore many different solutions to the HMW questions. Both of us gravitated towards plant care. Based on our collected data, we realized that users were more concerned with understanding their new plant's needs and maintaining them.

A NEW DIRECTION

At this point, we realized that business goals and user needs did not align. Users were not inclined to utilize AR features on existing platforms due to technical limitations. Because users are primarily shopping in-stores for the thrill of it but unsure of the commitment aspect, educating shopper on how to care for their plants before and after purchase takes priority over a self-checkout AR feature.

SITE MAP

My teammate developed a site map to help us visualize the content organization and determine which features to integrate.

UNDERSTANDING INTERACTIONS

After creating the skeleton of the platform, we began thinking about how our persona, Caleb, could interact with each page to complete a certain task. Our interaction designer created a task flow diagram to help us understand what a user might go through when engaging with features.

IDEATE

BRANDING WITH PERSONALITY

We wanted PlantLab's branding to be appealing to our target audience. During our interviews, we discovered that many plant owners see themselves as plant "parents" and actually name their "plant babies". With this in mind, we decided to inject some whimsy into our design and lots of personality. Our key words were: cheeky, fun, whimsical.

Lo-Fi Wireframes

Once we analyzed all of the data and defined our solution, it was time to put it all together! We quickly organized a few lo-fi wireframes to make our ideas more concrete. This was an essential part of the process as it allowed us to solidify our concept and visualize the problems.

Home Screen

Product Browse

Plant Profile

BRINGING THE DESIGN TO LIFE

After establishing the lo-fi wireframes, we began plugging in content. We referenced our style tile throughout this process to ensure that our branding was consistent throughout our app. We also had a lot of fun with our micro-interactions.

TESTS & REVISIONS

TESTING THE NEW FEATURE

The testing stage is my personal favorite - it’s where you’re able to see the design in action and observe how users approach the given tasks. The goal here is to identify areas for improvements, uncover confusion, and validate/invalidate assumptions. How are users going to interact with the design?

Before conducting usability testing, we outlined our plan and goals for the exercise. Given the current circumstances, we decided to facilitate testing via Zoom calls. We requested all participants to walk us through their thought process as they worked through the tasks presented to them. We approached this activity similarly to our 1:1 interviews.

We recruited 5 participants who are Gen Zers and Millennials, and identify as plant enthusiasts. Participants were able to complete the tasks put before them with minimal to no issues.

Design Iterations:

LISTEN, OBSERVE, IMPROVE

While participants were running through the tasks, my teammate and I observed what they were doing via screen share. We were able to collect great intell from each session. We compiled these into another affinity map by clustering sticky-notes with common themes together. By forming these groups, patterns began to emerge and we were able to identify key areas for improvement. The main goal was to ensure the design was human-centered.

Key Insight 1:

People did not realize that "care needs" was interactive

Original:

Adjusted bar interaction

Iteration:

Observations:

4/5 participants did not interact with the UI under "care needs". They didn’t realize that they could engage with the bar.

Thought-Process:

Since the interaction for this scroll was not intuitive for our users we decided to modify the graphics of the bar to make it clear that it could be toggled.

DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

After addressing the main pain-points of participants, we took some time to look at the positive feedback. The burning question on my mind: were the design assumptions validated during testing?

Highlight #1:

Easy Navigation

5/5 participants found the navigation easy and intuitive

“The plant overview is very helpful. I'm learning a lot already!”

Highlight #2:

Strong Branding and Personality

5/5 users had a strong positive reaction to overall branding and personality of the app

"I feel very validated as a plant owner through this experience."

REFLECTIONS

This capstone was a joy to work on. Being able to collaborate with someone to solve design problems is always more rewarding. You get to challenge each other and move the project in directions that you, yourself might not have gotten to. There were a few times where we ran into some communication issues. We resolved this by jumping on video calls to talk it through. After touching base, we usually realized pretty quickly that we were talking about the same thing and just articulating it in a different way. We came to the realization that everyone processes information differently, but the data points to the same findings.

If I were to do this project again, I would want to build a bigger team. Unfortunately, due to current circumstances, we had a difficult time arranging this for this capstone. I think being able to collaborate with 1-2 more people would have allowed us to cover more ground.

NEXT STEPS

Now that we’ve had a chance to pick up the priority revisions, I would want to test the functionality of the bar again to ensure that the design is intuitive and user-friendly. My teammate would also want to enhance some of the UI elements to make them a little more crisp.