Blossom Plant Care App

TEAM MEMBERS

Sergey, Joyce, Jenise, Patricia and Tim

MY ROLE

Prototyping, Interaction Design, Content Strategy

PROJECT LENGTH

3 Week Sprint, Summer 2024

TOOLS

Figma

Project Description

The Blossom Plant Care App redesign project focused on enhancing the user experience by addressing core pain points and creating features that better align with user needs. Through in-depth research, wireframing, and prototyping, I transformed the app’s interface to make it more intuitive and engaging. This process involved user-centered design methodologies and iterative feedback to ensure the final product maximized both usability and functionality for plant care enthusiasts.

Problem Space

According to New York Botanical Garden the average plant parent has killed 7 houseplants and 48% of them are worried about keeping their plants alive. 

67% of plant owners

find plant care more challenging than they expected.

22% of plant owners

explain that their apprehension stems from accidentally killing a plant in the past.

1000 gardeners

who have been gardening for more than 6 months but less than a year, indicate that :
he hardest part of becoming a gardener is making it through the first year.

“Plant stores are great at getting the product to customers, but they ultimately don't care if those customers know how to keep them alive, let alone care for them in a way that helps them thrive.” (Burke, 2022)

The Client

Plant owners use Blossom as a tool to plan, keep track of schedules, and keep their plants healthy. However, plant care is complex and takes dozens of factors into account. Due to the lack of support in their plant health related sections, customers are unable to maximize the value of Blossom, and in turn struggle to keep their plants healthy.

Narrowing Down

USER JOURNEY MAP

For our intervention, we will be focusing on the spaces around the Plant Care Checklist and Journal Function.

FRAMING

How might we build foundational knowledge and habits over time in order to help users prevent, rather than react to indoor plant death and disease?

Intervention #1

We decided to propose a new art direction for the app, building upon the existing color palette to create a more cohesive and intuitive experience. This decision wasn't simply about “enhancing aesthetics” but was driven by the need to establish consistency, improve readability, and reduce cognitive overhead.

ORIGINAL ART DIRECTION

UPDATED VERSION

Intervention #2

For our second intervention, we introduced a set of new features designed to enhance the value Blossom originally intended to provide its users. To ensure alignment with their established brand, we leveraged a brand value pillar model, enabling us to gain deeper insights into their vision and create solutions that resonate with their core principles.

BRAND VALUE PILLAR MODEL

CUSTOMIZED CARE TIPS TO NURTURE EACH PLANT’S UNIQUE NEEDS

With the new Tips feature, Blossom provides customized advice on essential plant care tasks like watering and fertilizing. Recognizing that each plant's needs are unique, these personalized tips offer an extra layer of guidance, empowering plant owners to make more informed and effective care decisions.

PLANT CARE TIPS - WIREFRAMES

PLANT CARE TIPS - HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

CHECKLIST & JOURNALING - WIREFRAMES

CHECKLIST & JOURNALING - HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

CAPTURE AND REFLECT: DOCUMENT YOUR PLANT’S JOURNEY

Introducing the Journaling feature to Blossom, allowing users to create text entries and add images to record and monitor their plant’s growth and health. This personalized log helps plant owners stay connected to their plants' progress and well-being over time.

EARLY DETECTION TO PREVENT CRITICAL PLANT DISTRESS

To enhance Blossom’s current plant care history and checklist, we introduce a plant maintenance section to further help plant owners keep track of their plant health.

GAMIFIED TRACKING AND ACHIEVEMENTS FOR SUSTAINABLE PLANT CARE HABITS

To encourage long-term engagement and habit-building, we've integrated Achievement and Tracking widgets directly into the user's homepage. By adding a touch of gamification and personalization, these features motivate plant owners to stay consistent with their care routines, fostering a deeper connection with their plants over time.

PROGRESS TRACKING - WIREFRAMES

PROGRESS TRACKING - HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

Reflection

As an experience design team working on this graduate project, we constantly asked ourselves, "Is there a need for intervention?" We needed to identify problem areas within our client’s existing brand and product while deeply understanding customer needs and what they value enough to invest in. This project was particularly challenging for me, as it required working on a final project at an accelerated pace due to the limited time of the intersession semester. We had to adhere to the principle of "garbage in, garbage out," ensuring that our ideas moved quickly and efficiently to meet the tight deadlines.