If killing plants was a crime, I think most of us would be felons. Most people have had the experience of seeing a plant wither and eventually die at some point in their lives. Luckily, there are a variety of apps to help remind us when to water our plants.
Plantiful isn’t just your typical plant watering app. It helps you identify unknown plants, offers professional care-taking instructions, and allows you to see the health status of your green buddies. Say goodbye to the dead plant sitting on your kitchen window sill. Say hello to Plantiful.
In order to gain a better understanding of my target user, I started by conducting online research. I downloaded a wide variety of plant watering applications (good and bad) to gain inspiration for the best features to implement and to identify potential problems to avoid. Reading reviews also helped me narrow down the pain points I wanted to address in my own application. Below are 3 major complaints I saw most frequently in the apps I researched.
Problem: One problem throughout many plant watering applications was the user’s ability to search for plants. Some apps only allowed the user to search their database by the plant’s scientific name and others didn’t even have a complete plant database.
Solution: Aside from allowing my users to search a plant by its scientific and common name, users are also able to simply take pictures and have our app identify the plant for them. This was a feature available in separate plant applications, but was not integrated into the plant watering applications I saw.
Problem: Users also complained about not being able to personalize their plant watering experience. Some apps did not allow the user to input their personal photos. They were also curious to see how watering notifications could vary depending on the stage of the plant’s life.
Solution: Plantiful allows users to take photos to edit the thumbnails displayed in their plant gallery. Additionally, all plant profiles are set up with a plant age, which allows the user to get a tailored experience.
Problem: A lot of disappointment with current plant watering app solutions are in the lack of information given. Some apps don’t offer a recommendation for a plant watering schedule. A majority of apps don’t offer a comprehensive view of plant details.
Solution: When a user uploads a plant type, a professionally constructed watering schedule will be given along with the ability to customize the schedule. Additionally, each plant profile comes with care-taking tips on top of thorough plant details such as lighting and soil instructions.
The user flow I created was based on the flow of multiple existing applications with some minor tweaks. I adjusted the flow to integrate the features and steps that I found were missing or could be improved from my user research. The goal was to make everything sensible and seamless.
This is the first screen that a returning user would see. 'My Plants' shows a collection of the user’s saved plants along with the next scheduled watering day. The user is also able to customize the groups seen on the tab bar at the top of the screen by changing their settings. This allows them the ability to sort by plant types, or other attributes such as location in their home.
The plant profiles are opened when the user clicks on one of the plants listed on the home screen. These profiles display all the information the user would need to know about their specific plant, including their next scheduled watering day, overall health, and current age. The user is able to access a variety of details and tips to make the plant grow.
Upon clicking the edit icon on the top right hand side of any plant profile picture, the user is taken to an edit page. Here, they can customize things such as the plant’s given name, watering schedule, and picture. The customization options were created in response to the complaints gathered on current plant watering applications. One example of a frequent complaint was the inability to change the plant’s picture.
The add button is located in the middle of the bottom navigation bar. When the user wants to add a new plant, they are prompted to type in the plant type (they can use either scientific or conventional names), which is autofilled based on the built-in plant database. The user also has a different option if they don’t know what what type of plant they have. By taking a picture with their camera, Plantiful is able to identify the user’s plant for them.
The schedule screen allows the user to see a comprehensive watering schedule for all of their plants. They are also able to select certain dates, which lists the plants to be watered for that day. This allows them to plan ahead of time.
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