Design work is always exciting to me because I'm constantly learning new things and challenging my perspectives!
Design work is always exciting to me because I'm constantly learning new things and challenging my perspectives!
Flora & Fauna
A case study focusing on research: (Discover and Define) analyzing a specific target group (gardeners) and planning/ executing workshops.
The final deliverable is a personalized app for gardeners. (Develop and Deliver).
The work we did as a team of four people
Responsibilities
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Secondary research
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Exploratory research
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Survey
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Observation
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AEIOU
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Heuristic Evaluation
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Interviews
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Touchstone Tours
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Personas
The work I did going solo
Responsibilities
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Ux design
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Ui design
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User journey maps
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Weighted matrix method
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Site map
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Usability tests
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Sus test
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1 Low-fidelity prototype
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1 Mid-fidelity prototype
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1 High-fidelity prototype
Date: May-June 2021
Time: 4 weeks
Date: June-July
Time: 2,5 weeks
2
User interviews
3
Iterations
6
User tests
6,5
Weeks
2
User observations
2
Remote workshops
Gardening is a hobby that provides a feeling of accomplishment
and a reward for those who do it.
The sense of achievement that comes with a successful garden allows us to focus on the beautiful things in life.
The problem
The corona pandemic has caused many Swedes to change their everyday lives where garden and greenery played an important role, not least for the sake of recovery.
However; there's a huge learning curve for new gardeners to plan their garden and grow food successfully. Even experienced gardeners struggle with
a lack of knowledge as well as managing to plan their gardening work efficiently.
Below are statements are taken from our target group survey.
"Sometimes the cultivation does not turn out as I thought/hoped"
"I have taken over an overgrown plot. I do not know what is what. There is a lot of weeds here".
"Time disappears so quickly when you are there.".
The case study brief:
The first half of the project- as a team:
I was part of a team of four people investigating target groups owning an allotment or cultivation lot.
Together we worked with the first part of the double diamond:
Discover and Define
The main objective of this UX case study was for each team of students to select a target group of people with a specific outdoor hobby. To dig deep and learn all aspects of thorough research, observations and interviews. In addition to this we explored and analysed a software used by our target group.
Another aspect of this brief was to learn how to plan, construct, and finally execute workshops with our selected target groups. We also learned how to perform design sprints.
Independent work
The second half of the project- going solo:
As I thoroughly enjoyed working on this case study,
I found it hard to let go of the project.
During the summer holiday, I decided to start working
on the last two parts of the double diamond:
Develop and Deliver
By finalizing the last two segments of the Double Diamond I ended up doing an extensive process.
This was based on the solid research already done,
as well as carrying on with my work.
Below I will expand more on my progress, where the
end result is my gardening app called Flora & Fauna.
Secondary research will serve as the basis for designing our survey
We started by working with secondary research and focused on finding Facebook groups or other forums where you can reach out to allotment owners.
Observations of target groups out in
their natural environment
As part of our research, we spent half a day going to various allotment plots to observe the target group.
We created an AIEOU spreadsheet recording different categories that we got from our observations.
The survey with 378 participants
The survey was created and sent out to various gardener 'associations. We used platforms such as Facebook primarily, as well as various associations' websites.
The survey consisted of both closed and open questions.
A quantitative analysis of the
survey is created
In the survey, we had both closed and open-ended questions that explored their challenges and goals.
Touchstone Tours (show and tell interviews) at Änggårdskolonin in Gothenburg
We conducted live interviews with allotment owners.
Both interviews took 1 hour 30 minutes and were done on two women in their 40s.
Selective coding of the interview questions from our Touchstone tours
We worked with selective coding to note which tracks we found particularly interesting and documented everything in a spreadsheet.
These data points were based on our observations as well as quotes from our target groups.
Quantitative analysis and
decoding of the data /affinity diagram
An affinity diagram is made and based on the answers we received, from our survey.
Through the user interviews and survey,
we discovered these needs in our user base.
Heuristic Evaluation on the
app Gardenice
According to our data collection, few allotment plot owners use any form of software. However, the app that most of those who responded to our survey used was the gardening app Gardenice.
We did a Heuristic Evaluation and arrived at below points:
Positive aspects:
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The navigation is easy to understand
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You can make detailed and advanced settings
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It's good for experienced users
Negative aspects:
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Poor adaptation for beginners
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Pop-up messages
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Inadequate explanations and introduction to functions
Three personas are created based
on our analyzed data
We have now examined our target group for three weeks. The majority of our target group is between 46- 65 years. They own an allotment due to the relaxation it provides; to get out into nature, and for the sake of gardening.
Through this analysis of the data we received, we created three personas. The first two personas are based on quantitative research and based on our survey answers, while the last one came from the qualitative analysis from our interviews.
click to enlarge image below
DEFINE
Great learnings ahead:
how to plan and execute a design sprint and workshops (remote and in-person)
It is time to learn all aspects of planning and conducting workshops and design sprints.
We as a team put a lot of effort into generating various ideas on how to build our workshops.
Keeping in mind the various aspects of performing them in-person or remote.
HMW Questions… What are the main problems we want to solve?
We had an ideation session within our team to define our mission and landed on the below how might we statement:
How can we help allotment owners plan their work based
on the season?
Mini design sprints with our fellow
UX design students
Our team held two separate mini design sprints with
six of our fellow UX design students.
One was remote and the other was in person.
The aim was for our fellow students to help us ideate ideas, ending up with 2-3 concepts that might help our real target audience in their pain points.
Two concepts to explore
Out of these ideas, we as a team selected two concepts to explore later on in a remote workshop with our real target group.
Concept 1 -
cultivation kiosk:
A digital station located in the allotment area like a soft drink/candy vending machine where you can buy seeds on-site.
Also providing tips on gardening.
Concept 2 -gardening kiosk:
A digital cultivation calendar via an app or website where you get tips and advice on gardening.
Getting up close and personal:
"meeting" our users!
The remote workshop with our target group- allotment owners with gardening experience
We had invited three women who were all allotment owners with several years of experience with gardening.
Our mission with this remote workshop was to explore our concepts based on our how-might-we goals.
The aim of the session was for our target audience to evaluate and debate these concepts. Then finally vote for one of the two previously mentioned concept ideas.
Below image is an overview of our remote workshop in Miro.
Finally, they chose concept option 2:
a digital gardening calendar/app:
Once the concept was selected, we helped them to dig deeper into analyzing various pros and cons with it.
Here is a summary of their insights on preferred features for an app or homepage:
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plant zones for various climate areas
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statistics/overview of past years results
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ability to personalize it
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to upload photos
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tips and advice on different plants
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to keep your notes/diary
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recipes linked to what you have in your garden
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selectable filters to make it as efficient as possible
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chat function with other gardeners
Finalizing the project as a team:
this is where the team's project is finished.
DEVELOP
Carrying on with the project on my own
I started by creating two customer journey maps.
I had decided on just focusing on two out of our three personas: the more experienced user and the beginner.
Their needs were clearly defined and had significant quantitative information based on our previous findings from our research.
The beginners' pain points:
wants to gain more knowledge and
insights on all aspects of gardening.
The experienced users' pain points:
to become more efficient in planning
and maintaining their garden.
Here are the two journey maps for the personas.
click to enlarge image below
Prioritizing the features for the app-
Weighted matrix method
To select the best features for the app, I chose to use the
Weighted matrix method.
click to enlarge image below
Creating a sitemap
DELIVER & TEST
HEX: #E7ECEA
HEX: #2F4741
HEX: #CCD3D1
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HEX: #D6F9D8
HEX: #6A8A82
THESE FOUR GREEN SHADES ARE THE PRIMARY COLORS
THREE ACCENT COLORS
HEX: #FE2323
HEX: #44CAF4
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HEX: #B17FC2
HEX: #418037
THESE SIX BRIGHT COLORS ARE USED TO HIGHLIGHT TECHNICAL INFORMATION AND ARE USED VERY SPARSELY
Time to sketch low fidelity wireframes
Usability testing round 1 on a
mid-fidelity prototype
Testing the prototype is an important step at the beginning of my prototyping.
I did a usability test on two of my classmates to ensure there weren't any major problems with the status of my app. I also tested it on a friend who does gardening.
Key findings after the test:
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unclear naming on some of the icons
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the to-do-list notification is confusing.
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the notes section should be placed on the plants' information page, for easy access.
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The recipe section is confusing in terms of the time and skill section. Users are confused about what is what. These need to be separated.
Usability testing round 2 on a
mid-fidelity prototype
My usability test was performed over Google Meet
and the users were all given a link to my app in Figma.
I did the test on three women who were all from the target group: allotment owners/gardeners.
I guided my users through a set of questions with
various tasks, as I wanted to see how well they could complete each task and navigate in the app.
I took notes in a test protocol, writing down how long it took for each user to perform on each segment.
This would indicate if and where navigation could be unclear.
Finishing off with a Sus test
(System Usability Scale)
Besides doing usability tests on my users I also had a wish of finding out what they thought about my app.
Is this a product that people would like to have in real life?
So to get some answers I also finished the usability tests by asking these 10 SUS questions.
And by these below positive results, it looked like my hard work had paid off.
The results of the SUS tests
86
The general guidelines for the survey:
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Excellent: >80.3
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Good: 68 - 80.3
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Okay: 68
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Poor: 51 - 68
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Awful: <51
The iterations I made after the
usability tests feedback
Before- to-do-list
After- to-do-list
Before- recipe section
After- recipe section
Based on the digital workshop with the target group, it was evident that they all wanted a personal app that would fit into their lifestyle and make their gardening work more efficient and easy to track.
Iteration:
The notification information is made clear with a written text instead of only a number.
Another section is added to the to-do-list where the user can add specific assignments other than
to water, fertilize, harvest, and plant.
I thought it would be a fun feature to adjust recipe recommendations by what plants a user has logged.
Iteration:
The information regarding the recipe is simplified. The users were confused with the time indicator and the skill indicator: easy, medium, and hard.
These are now separated.
Before- filtered search
After- filtered search
Before- filtered search
After- filtered search
The intention of the app is that it's based on a solid database, containing various plants, flowers, fruits, and berries.
These are all easily searchable by various filters and search functions.
Iteration:
A call to action button is added
to add a plant. Notes and reminders are added to each plants information card.
Iteration:
An extra filter has been added
to inform that a plant is both animal and child friendly.
Before- plant info
After- plant info with added notes
After- plant info with added
timeline for plants
Iteration:
The notes section is moved from the profile section to be embedded in each plant profile.
I also changed the name on the above delete-call-to-action button.
Iteration:
The notes are laid out as a timeline, giving the users an easy way of tracking their plants' progress through both notes and photos.
Before- notifications/ reminders
After- notifications/ reminders
I started with having the notification and reminders section as an icon in the tab bar. But I decided to move it to the profile section where the users expected it to be placed.
Iteration:
The reminders section has been changed. Instead of the users entering their preferred settings; it is defaulted by the app.
Now the reminders are based on the recommendations made by the app. It tells you when the recommended time is for watering each plant.
The final high fidelity app
Lenght Of Demo:
08:32 min
REFLECT
RITA ANTHONY
Project Takeaways
Through this project, I discovered a new love for planning and executing a workshop session. Engaging with the end-users made me aware of their needs on a deeper level.
I also really understood the importance of doing solid research work and immersing oneself in exploring the target group.
Below are further insights that I got along the way.
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Whenever you got lost, refer back to the affinity map and let research guide you.
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Test with target audiences and iterate. Fail fast, and test early.
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the last but not the least thing I learned was a genuine interest in the work you’re doing will be the biggest motivation.
