edible space
grow your own edible garden
OVERVIEW
A new study from local market research firm Scarborough reveals that of the nearly 164 million homeowners in the United States, nearly half (49 percent) gardened in the past 12 months.
However, gardeners have limited options when it comes to using the digital space to help eliminate the guesswork of gardening. Plant identification, general plant watering and indoor plant apps saturate the market. Edible space is different. Focused on gardeners of all skillsets looking to grow an edible garden Edible Space is a gardening app with features such as planting a digital garden, chat and video calling experts in real time, and customized reminders to help maintain an at home edible space.
Edible Space is a gardening app built for users with a gardening skill set ranging from beginner to expert. Our focus is to ease, connect and guide our user's gardening experiences by using Edible Space.
ROLE
Interviews, competitive analysis, sketching, user testing, mid + high fidelity wireframing, prototyping, UI design
TIMELINE
7 months
1
UNDERSTAND
THE CHALLENGE
At home gardeners have expressed increased interest in growing their food at home however, we were not able to find any available app solutions for a person looking to grow an edible garden. In addition, we discovered apprehension, and confusion about starting and maintaining a garden and where to turn for localized information.
OBSERVE
USER INTERVIEWS
KEY FINDINGS
All of the amateur interviewees shared that they would love to grow enough produce to feed themselves but struggle with feeling overwhelmed when trying to start or maintain a garden.
Performing one on one skype interviews we found that all of the interviewees that considered themselves amateur gardeners felt this way. When asked “In regards to gardening, which parts of the process do you feel you have the most trouble with?” P1, a stay at home mom and amateur gardener replied
“Actually starting a garden, my lack of understanding and knowledge and when I try to research online the results are overwhelming."
Expert gardeners mentioned that keeping pests and bugs at bay and prepping and maintaining their soil and plants caused them the most difficulties.
100% of the gardeners agreed that they would use an expert call feature.
The amateur gardeners said they could benefit from having access to an expert with help setting up their garden and dealing with incremental issues. Experts shared excitement and interest when proposed with the idea of getting paid for their gardening knowledge. Although all of the interviewees agreed that the expert portion of the app should be paid they differed in their thoughts for the price and billing timeframe.
The participants were most excited about the localized garden calendar and personalized task list feature.
Interviewees showed verbal and visual excitement when discussing the helpfulness of our localized garden calendar that is personalized for the gardeners digital garden to remind them of important plant milestones and maintenance tips.
2
OBSERVE
USER INTERVIEWS
With early insights I conducted remote interviews with 4 interviewees with an interest or skillset in gardening. My goals for the interviews were to:
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Determine general gardening needs
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Determine the root of apprehension and confusion with gardening
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Discover the user cases and the most beneficial features for the users
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Discuss a fair price for expert advice
KEY FINDINGS
All of the amateur interviewees shared that they would love to grow enough produce to feed themselves but struggle with feeling overwhelmed when trying to start or maintain a garden.
Performing one on one skype interviews we found that all of the interviewees that considered themselves amateur gardeners felt this way. When asked “In regards to gardening, which parts of the process do you feel you have the most trouble with?” P1, a stay at home mom and amateur gardener replied
“Actually starting a garden, my lack of understanding and knowledge and when I try to research online the results are overwhelming."
Expert gardeners mentioned that keeping pests and bugs at bay and prepping and maintaining their soil and plants caused them the most difficulties.
100% of the gardeners agreed that they would use an expert call feature.
The amateur gardeners said they could benefit from having access to an expert with help setting up their garden and dealing with incremental issues. Experts shared excitement and interest when proposed with the idea of getting paid for their gardening knowledge. Although all of the interviewees agreed that the expert portion of the app should be paid they differed in their thoughts for the price and billing timeframe.
The participants were most excited about the localized garden calendar and personalized task list feature.
Interviewees showed verbal and visual excitement when discussing the helpfulness of our localized garden calendar that is personalized for the gardeners digital garden to remind them of important plant milestones and maintenance tips.
3
POINT OF VIEW
I created user personas to get a better understanding of the potential users and to further create a product that would appeal to the user and improve their experience.
USER PERSONAS
LIANA 32
Tuscany, Italy
Female
Cafe owner and chef in a relationship with her long- term boyfriend.
MATT 27
Brooklyn, NY
Male
Single, busy Horticulture Student at NYU. Has his Bachelors and is pursuing his Masters.
TEGAN 42
San Diego, CA
Female
Married stay at home Mother of two children 14 and 16.
4
IDEATE
The first step I took was to examine similar competitors (SmartPlant, 6ya and The Farmers Almanac) SmartPlant and 6ya’s expert feature was similar and Farmer’s Almanac had a great digital garden webapp. I took inspiration from their UI and flow to sketch out our processes and wireframes.
TASK ANALYSIS + USER FLOWS
5
PROTOTYPE
CREATE A DIGITAL GARDEN
Use edible space's digital garden planner feature to plant a digital garden and gather your list of materials to plant the real thing.
LOCALIZED MAINTANCE REMINDERS
After creating a digital garden edible space's calendar feature will do the rest. Get a real-time localized task list based on your location so you will never have to forget when to water your plants, harvest your crops or start new seeds.
INSTANT EXPERT GARDENING HELP
Chat or video call with our database of experts to get help with anything from starting a garden and picking the ideal space to how to get rid of pests organically.
6
TEST
TESTING MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
We interviewed five potential users over a span of two days. Interviews were performed via Skype and in-person. We aimed to discover:
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Can our users access the desired information effectively?
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Can our users create a garden with ease?
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Are our users able to choose and set up an expert call without trouble?
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Determine if the users are able to see what the app is about quickly and easily
FINDINGS
We discovered five issues with the app that we rated by severity with Jakob Neilsen's Heuristic Evaluation.
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1
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Not offering different types of containers (such as pot or patch of land)
Suggested Change: Add a screen where the user can choose their pot or patch of land in addition to the raised garden box
Add more color and photos on the home page
Suggested Change: Add photos on the home page to brighten it up and add a weather feature that adds another visual element as well
Blank Garden box when setting up digital garden in planner
Suggested Change: Add coach note and/or button movement so the user knows what to do on this page.
Unsure of how to add plants into the garden box
Suggested Change: Prompt the user with a coach note so they understand how to add the plant to their garden
Unsure of why plants have to be selected two times
Suggested Change: Let the users know in the first round of choosing plants that it is adding plants to their database – once they get to the second round of adding the actual plants to the
garden
