Plantful

Final year project

Interaction deisgner

16 weeks

Figma, Arduino, Illustrator

A plant care app and smart plant pot, that integrates mindfulness to better individuals' well-being through plant care.

Overview

Problem

Design a artefact or prototype to help current plant owners to better their well-being through plant interaction.

Solution

Plantful, a plant care, mindfulness app and smart plant pot, allows plant owners to track their plants needs and meditate whilst they care for their plants, bettering the well-being of themselves and their plants.

Process

A flow chart to show the design process for making Plantful

Discover

Interviews

I interviewed 5 plant owners to understand their current relationship between plant interaction and well-being and understand some of the challenges that come alongside.

Sample questions included:

  1. What made you decide to have plants in your home?

  2. How do you feel when you interact with your plants?

  3. Do you feel a positive impact on your well-being when interacting with plants and why?

  4. Are there any challenges that you face when interacting/looking after your plants?

  5. In what ways could you enhance your interaction with plants to better your well-being?

Key insights from interviews

  • Having plants benefit overall mood and well-being, whilst caring and not caring for the plant.

  • Participants are motivated to keep plants alive due to their positive well-being impacts, however lack the knowledge and time to care for them.

  • Lack of focus for plants due to other stresses result in negative impacts on well-being.

Competitors

I conducted secondary research to understand how technology has been integrated with plant interaction to benefit the well-being of individuals.

App screen of Phyto interface

PHYTO

An autonomous plant care system, that monitors temperature, humidity, water and light to accurately and efficiently manage and care for your plants.

Magic flowerpot AR plant with its data

Magic Flowerpot

Magic Flowerpot is a game that utilises AR to increase interactions with plants and educate users about plants within their local area.

3 Plant care app screen for Blossom, Planta and Greg.

Plant care apps

Apps that help to care and manage your plants. Features include reminders, plant guides and track plant progress.

Findings

  • Plant care apps help to manage and provide resources to care for plants.

  • Automation is widely use to aid with plant care, reducing the burden of caring for the plant. This improve plant longevity but reduce interactions with plant.

  • AR can encourage visual interaction with plants.

  • Overall there is a lack of technologies that use plant interaction to directly benefit individuals' well-being.

Define

Empathy Mapping

Using both primary and secondary research, I formed an empathy map to collate and define my target audience, illustrating their context, thoughts and feelings.

An empathy map outling a persona of Anaisha Rahman and her problems and issues when interacting with plants.

USP

Reviewing the audience, I felt the practice of mindfulness would be an appropriate approach for my final concept.

By adding focus to their plants through mindfulness, we can remove worries and stresses of user, by bringing them to a calmer state when interacting with plants.

HOW CAN WE DESIGN FOR MINDFULNESS:

monitor and cellphone

TECHNOLOGY

Incorporating mindfulness with technology makes it a more accessible practice, but, can cause disruptions.
How might we incorporate mindfulness with technology without creating disruptions within the mindfulness practice?

Head with snoflake

TECHNIQUES

There are many techniques to practice mindfulness. But formulating a structure for mindfulness can feel restricting and routine-like.
How might we integrate mindfulness techniques so users are motivated and encouraged to participate in mindfulness with their own freedom?

Paint pallette

VISUALS & AESTHETICS

We can use visuals to create a soothing and relaxing environment for users. A rich design has details, immersing users but also distracting.
How might we create a visual design that allows easy interaction but allows users to feel comfortable and focus whilst practising mindfulness?

bar chart

DATA

Collecting data provides users with feedback and improved awareness of themselves. However this can create comparisons to the past.
How might we incorporate data that doesn’t distract and allow non-judgemental
reflection to better user’s practice of mindfulness?

Ideate

Brainstorming

After defining the target audience and USP, I began to generate ideas to address the problem.

Mindmap of ideas

Storyboarding

With my idea chosen I began to illustrate some of the key interactions using a storyboard.

A storyboard showing how Plantful would work and be used

Card Sorting

Using sticky notes I began to detail out the apps features and categorise them. This then helped me to build the information architecture of the app.

Sticky notes sorted into categories
Site map to show information architecture of Plantful app

Design

Low-Fi Wireframes

After sketching low-fi wireframes on paper, I began to mock them up in Figma. These wireframes were then used to test the usability of the app initially, so I could explore the current interactions early on in the process and make easy modifications.

Initial hand-drawn skethces of Plantful app
lo-fi wireframes of Plantful app made in Figma

Style Guide

Before building the hi-fi wireframes, I created a style guide to ensure a consistent look to the app.

Style guide for Plantful app, showing grid system, colours, typography, visual elements and components.

Coding

To build the smart plant pot, I used Arduino. I connected an moisture and light sensor, as the current parameters for improved plant health, and tested their connection with the Arduino kit.

Moisture sensor being tested in water
Moisture and light sensor soldered to micro arduino
Arduino code for Plantful smart pot

Prototyping

I completed the coding and moved on to design the smart plant pot prototype. Taking into consideration e-waste, I designed the pot so it could be easily taken apart to amend or dispose, without creating much waste.

Sketches and final look of the plantful pot prototype

Test

Usability Testing

I did 2 sets of user testing. The first was usability testing, using my lo-fi wireframes, to identify issues with navigation, layouts and interactions.

Findings

There was an 80% success rate with the tasks assigned to participants, therefore the usability of the overall app was good. Things to improve on include:

Magnifying glass

CLARIFICATION

Be clear with components by adding short informative text.

Eye

RECOGNITION

Use components and interactions that are already widely recognisable.

Filter

CUSTOMISATION

Prioritise customisation during mindfulness practice and scheduling tasks, to adhere to users own context and needs.

Hand-drawn iterated sketches ater testing

Experience User Testing

After the completion of the app and smart plant pot prototype, I conducted experience user testing with 2 potential users, to assess the user experience.

Phone in hand with plantful app participant 1
Phone in hand with plantful app participant 2

Findings

  • 100% success rate with completing tasks, showing improved usability of the app.

  • Both participants found the app and smart plant pot to be aesthetically pleasing and felt calm and relaxed when interacting with both artefacts.

  • One participant really enjoyed the smaller personalised aspects of the app such as naming your pot/plant, making the experience more joyful.

  • Another participant preferred to manually adjust the duration of their mindful session, so to fit easily into their time.

Final Designs

Onboarding

Simple, clear steps to help connect your Plantful account to you Plantful smart plant pot.

Login or set up a Plantful account. Enter with calm visuals, building a safe-space.

Connect your Plantful pot and personalise it by attaching a name and picture to your plant.

View the the system status of your Plantful pots from your app and add new Plantful pots.

Homepage

See what your plants' need and alter your Plantful activities to suit your context.

Welcomed into the app, notifying them of their plants needs. View and edit plant care activity details, allowing more accommodation to users context.

Add your own plant care activities, by choosing the activity, frequency of activity and if you'd like to add a mindfulness session alongside it.

Meditation

Participate in Plantful mediation sessions whilst caring for your plants and better you and your plants' well-being.

Start your Plantful meditation session by choosing the mindfulness technique and duration.

Alter your Plantful meditation so that it suits your current ability and preferences.

In case of emergency disruptions, users can pause, forward or rewind the session.

Reflection

Reflect on your meditation, and how you're feeling in the moment.

Save the moment by noting down how you're feeling and snap a picture of your plant.

Look back on your reflections and see how you and you're plant have grown.

Progress

See how you're mindfulness journey has been progressing, non-judgementally, and increase your awareness and be motivated.

Mindfulness statistics show how much you have been participating in mindfulness and bettering your well-being.

Mood history allows reflection on your mood throughout the week or month.

Repair

Book a repair for any faulty or broken parts, so we can do our part to reduce e-waste.

Book a repair by telling us what is wrong with your Plantful smart pot.

Track your repair in the Plantful app and be notified when there's been updates to you Plantful pot.

Takeaways

What I learnt...

I learnt how to undertake a detailed level of user testing, as well as try new methods of testing. It was really fascinating to see how the concept had developed after the 2 sets of testing.

I enjoyed picking out and analysing the data to iterate and form a more usable experience for users.

What I would change...

I would have changed my approach when experience user testing. Firstly, I would have more participants, and secondly, I would change the experience to feel realer, by using an actual plant and undergoing meditation.

Furthermore, I would measure if there were any changes to the user's overall well being to view any real impact from my product.

Plantful

Final year project

Interaction deisgner

16 weeks

Figma, Arduino, Illustrator

A plant care app and smart plant pot, that integrates mindfulness to better individuals' well-being through plant care.

Overview

Problem

Design a artefact or prototype to help current plant owners to better their well-being through plant interaction.

Solution

Plantful, a plant care, mindfulness app and smart plant pot, allows plant owners to track their plants needs and meditate whilst they care for their plants, bettering the well-being of themselves and their plants.

Process

A flow chart to show the design process for making Plantful

Discover

Interviews

I interviewed 5 plant owners to understand their current relationship between plant interaction and well-being and understand some of the challenges that come alongside.

Sample questions included:

  1. What made you decide to have plants in your home?

  2. How do you feel when you interact with your plants?

  3. Do you feel a positive impact on your well-being when interacting with plants and why?

  4. Are there any challenges that you face when interacting/looking after your plants?

  5. In what ways could you enhance your interaction with plants to better your well-being?

Key insights from interviews

  • Having plants benefit overall mood and well-being, whilst caring and not caring for the plant.

  • Participants are motivated to keep plants alive due to their positive well-being impacts, however lack the knowledge and time to care for them.

  • Lack of focus for plants due to other stresses result in negative impacts on well-being.

Competitors

I conducted secondary research to understand how technology has been integrated with plant interaction to benefit the well-being of individuals.

App screen of Phyto interface

PHYTO

An autonomous plant care system, that monitors temperature, humidity, water and light to accurately and efficiently manage and care for your plants.

Magic flowerpot AR plant with its data

Magic Flowerpot

Magic Flowerpot is a game that utilises AR to increase interactions with plants and educate users about plants within their local area.

3 Plant care app screen for Blossom, Planta and Greg.

Plant care apps

Apps that help to care and manage your plants. Features include reminders, plant guides and track plant progress.

Findings

  • Plant care apps help to manage and provide resources to care for plants.

  • Automation is widely use to aid with plant care, reducing the burden of caring for the plant. This improve plant longevity but reduce interactions with plant.

  • AR can encourage visual interaction with plants.

  • Overall there is a lack of technologies that use plant interaction to directly benefit individuals' well-being.

Define

Empathy Mapping

Using both primary and secondary research, I formed an empathy map to collate and define my target audience, illustrating their context, thoughts and feelings.

An empathy map outling a persona of Anaisha Rahman and her problems and issues when interacting with plants.

USP

Reviewing the audience, I felt the practice of mindfulness would be an appropriate approach for my final concept.

By adding focus to their plants through mindfulness, we can remove worries and stresses of user, by bringing them to a calmer state when interacting with plants.

HOW CAN WE DESIGN FOR MINDFULNESS:

monitor and cellphone

TECHNOLOGY

Incorporating mindfulness with technology makes it a more accessible practice, but, can cause disruptions.
How might we incorporate mindfulness with technology without creating disruptions within the mindfulness practice?

Head with snoflake

TECHNIQUES

There are many techniques to practice mindfulness. But formulating a structure for mindfulness can feel restricting and routine-like.
How might we integrate mindfulness techniques so users are motivated and encouraged to participate in mindfulness with their own freedom?

Paint pallette

VISUALS & AESTHETICS

We can use visuals to create a soothing and relaxing environment for users. A rich design has details, immersing users but also distracting.
How might we create a visual design that allows easy interaction but allows users to feel comfortable and focus whilst practising mindfulness?

bar chart

DATA

Collecting data provides users with feedback and improved awareness of themselves. However this can create comparisons to the past.
How might we incorporate data that doesn’t distract and allow non-judgemental
reflection to better user’s practice of mindfulness?

Ideate

Brainstorming

After defining the target audience and USP, I began to generate ideas to address the problem.

Mindmap of ideas

Storyboarding

With my idea chosen I began to illustrate some of the key interactions using a storyboard.

A storyboard showing how Plantful would work and be used

Card Sorting

Using sticky notes I began to detail out the apps features and categorise them. This then helped me to build the information architecture of the app.

Sticky notes sorted into categories
Site map to show information architecture of Plantful app

Design

Low-Fi Wireframes

After sketching low-fi wireframes on paper, I began to mock them up in Figma. These wireframes were then used to test the usability of the app initially, so I could explore the current interactions early on in the process and make easy modifications.

Initial hand-drawn skethces of Plantful app
lo-fi wireframes of Plantful app made in Figma

Style Guide

Before building the hi-fi wireframes, I created a style guide to ensure a consistent look to the app.

Style guide for Plantful app, showing grid system, colours, typography, visual elements and components.

Coding

To build the smart plant pot, I used Arduino. I connected an moisture and light sensor, as the current parameters for improved plant health, and tested their connection with the Arduino kit.

Moisture sensor being tested in water
Moisture and light sensor soldered to micro arduino
Arduino code for Plantful smart pot

Prototyping

I completed the coding and moved on to design the smart plant pot prototype. Taking into consideration e-waste, I designed the pot so it could be easily taken apart to amend or dispose, without creating much waste.

Sketches and final look of the plantful pot prototype

Test

Usability Testing

I did 2 sets of user testing. The first was usability testing, using my lo-fi wireframes, to identify issues with navigation, layouts and interactions.

Findings

There was an 80% success rate with the tasks assigned to participants, therefore the usability of the overall app was good. Things to improve on include:

Magnifying glass

CLARIFICATION

Be clear with components by adding short informative text.

Eye

RECOGNITION

Use components and interactions that are already widely recognisable.

Filter

CUSTOMISATION

Prioritise customisation during mindfulness practice and scheduling tasks, to adhere to users own context and needs.

Hand-drawn iterated sketches ater testing

Experience User Testing

After the completion of the app and smart plant pot prototype, I conducted experience user testing with 2 potential users, to assess the user experience.

Phone in hand with plantful app participant 1
Phone in hand with plantful app participant 2

Findings

  • 100% success rate with completing tasks, showing improved usability of the app.

  • Both participants found the app and smart plant pot to be aesthetically pleasing and felt calm and relaxed when interacting with both artefacts.

  • One participant really enjoyed the smaller personalised aspects of the app such as naming your pot/plant, making the experience more joyful.

  • Another participant preferred to manually adjust the duration of their mindful session, so to fit easily into their time.

Final Designs

Onboarding

Simple, clear steps to help connect your Plantful account to you Plantful smart plant pot.

Login or set up a Plantful account. Enter with calm visuals, building a safe-space.

Connect your Plantful pot and personalise it by attaching a name and picture to your plant.

View the the system status of your Plantful pots from your app and add new Plantful pots.

Homepage

See what your plants' need and alter your Plantful activities to suit your context.

Welcomed into the app, notifying them of their plants needs. View and edit plant care activity details, allowing more accommodation to users context.

Add your own plant care activities, by choosing the activity, frequency of activity and if you'd like to add a mindfulness session alongside it.

Meditation

Participate in Plantful mediation sessions whilst caring for your plants and better you and your plants' well-being.

Start your Plantful meditation session by choosing the mindfulness technique and duration.

Alter your Plantful meditation so that it suits your current ability and preferences.

In case of emergency disruptions, users can pause, forward or rewind the session.

Reflection

Reflect on your meditation, and how you're feeling in the moment.

Save the moment by noting down how you're feeling and snap a picture of your plant.

Look back on your reflections and see how you and you're plant have grown.

Progress

See how you're mindfulness journey has been progressing, non-judgementally, and increase your awareness and be motivated.

Mindfulness statistics show how much you have been participating in mindfulness and bettering your well-being.

Mood history allows reflection on your mood throughout the week or month.

Repair

Book a repair for any faulty or broken parts, so we can do our part to reduce e-waste.

Book a repair by telling us what is wrong with your Plantful smart pot.

Track your repair in the Plantful app and be notified when there's been updates to you Plantful pot.

Takeaways

What I learnt...

I learnt how to undertake a detailed level of user testing, as well as try new methods of testing. It was really fascinating to see how the concept had developed after the 2 sets of testing.

I enjoyed picking out and analysing the data to iterate and form a more usable experience for users.

What I would change...

I would have changed my approach when experience user testing. Firstly, I would have more participants, and secondly, I would change the experience to feel genuine, by using a real plant and undergoing meditation.

Furthermore, I would measure if there were any changes to the user's overall well being to view any real impact from my product.

If you’ve liked what you’ve seen,

and would like to work together,

Feel free to Contact me!

If you’ve liked what you’ve seen, and would like to work together,

Feel free to Contact me!

You can also find me on:

You can also find me on: