Ryan Wichtendahl
Connecting Gardeners with CoPlant
Introduction
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How might we improve wellness and build social connections between all types of people? Gardening has several health benefits and a passionate community, but it can be a challenge for gardeners to find solutions to issues they might encounter with their plants. CoPlant is a digital forum that allows gardeners to share their experiences with each other, exchange knowledge, and form new relationships. I created CoPlant based on feedback from dozens of gardener interviews, several weeks of prototyping, and two rounds of usability testing. The app reduces barriers between gardeners to help everyone grow together.
Empathize: User Interviews
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To understand what kinds of digital experiences could benefit a wide variety of gardeners, I reached out to Community Crops, a Lincoln, Nebraska-based non-profit offering community gardens and gardening education programs. Staff at Crops offered great insight, and connected me with several gardeners in the program I was able to interview. For more data, I posted a survey on my social network and conducted interviews with family and friends.
Empathize: Key Insights
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Two important trends emerged from my user research.
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First, Google and other internet resources were the most common place gardeners turned when they had questions because they could find resources quickly. However, they were often overwhelmed with information and weren't sure if it was trustworthy.
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Second, gardeners turned to other gardeners for more trustworthy information, as well as to build social connection. They love what they're doing, and want to share it with others.
Empathize: Competitive Analysis
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I examined a variety of diagnostic tools, advice resources, and gardening forums. There are many great tools, but none of them capture a balance between educational resources and social connection in a mobile experience.
Solutions not always offered, web platforms have long turnaround times
Great for helping individuals plan and track their gardens, but little expert help or social features
Great flexibility for expert help and social connection, but currently designed for web platforms
Solutions not always offered, web platforms have long turnaround times
Define: Primary Question
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It was clear that gardeners valued speed and quantity of information, but also trustworthy guidance and social interaction. A useful digital product should provide a balance of both. This led to my first big question:
Define: Personas
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I understood users as being divided into two groups, the question asker and the question answerer. I created two personas for these groups and expanded upon them using empathy mapping.
Question Asker: Inexperienced but wanting to learn
Question Answerer: Experienced and wanting to share knowledge
Define: Secondary Questions
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Clarifying user goals and pain points allowed me to generate three more questions related to my product's usability. Considering these questions throughout the design process would help streamline the experience and connect the askers to the right answerers.
Ideate: User Flows
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To create a minimum viable product, I distilled my product's interactions down to three key paths:
Ideate: Sketches
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I drew inspiration from social media feeds, which encapsulate information into posts with text, images, and tags. The forum would open with a news feed, featuring recent posts users could scroll through and comment on. From there, they could create a post of their own or search for a specific type of post to interact with.
News feed with vertical scrolling
Post: User profile photo & information, written content, optional images and tags
Bottom navigation bar
New Post popup: User adds title, content, tags, and images
Home Screen and beginning of add post flow
Every post has a reply button
Beginning of reply to a post flow
Beginning of reply to a post flow
Beginning of reply to a post flow
Beginning of reply to a post flow
User adds content and photos directly below the original post
Dropdown list of search suggestions as user types
Results can be sorted using a variety of filters
Beginning of search for a post flow
Ideate: Wireframes
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Expanding upon the rough sketches, I created wireframes for the three primary flows in my minimum viable product. An important iteration was with the add a post flow, which I changed from a single popup to a sequence of screens in order to reduce cognitive load.
Contains feed of recent posts
Filters change the order of posts and hide irrelevant posts
Ideate: Brand Design
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Before jumping into higher fidelity, I named my product CoPlant and generated its visual brand. CoPlant combines gardening and community, and it was important that the colors, typography, icons, and other elements reflected that. I sought to create something that felt friendly and familiar, in a style that would allow the users' content to shine through.
Prototype: High Fidelity Screens
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Applying CoPlant's new brand to the wireframes, I designed high-fidelity screens and linked them together in an interactive prototype. I made a few minor changes to the add a post and reply to a post flows, but the search flow had the most notable developments. The full-sized posts used in the wireframes were collapsed into a more readable list, and the search bar was kept on the screen even after a user had entered a keyword.
Features the CoPlant logo and a leaf motif
A scrollable news feed with user posts and expandable photos
Post previews are displayed in a filtered order
Features the CoPlant logo and a leaf motif
Test: First Round
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To understand the usability of my prototype, I reached out to five people and asked them to complete a set of tasks based on the three primary functions. Overall, participants were able to easily accomplish the tasks, and commented on the screens being familiar and easy to navigate. The main issue of concern was with the search flow. Participants commented that the results list was overwhelming, and it was difficult to distinguish where one result ended and another began. Most participants also needed prompting to scroll the filters list horizontally, demonstrating that the feature wasn't very intuitive. A final issue multiple participants raised was with the success popup after adding a new post or reply. They felt the size was jarring, more like an error message than a success. One participant even said her instinct was to tap the undo option because she thought she had made a mistake.
"I thought I did something wrong when this popped up"
"I didn't know the filters scrolled"
"I don't understand these results"
Test: Prototype Improvements
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Based on the feedback from users, I made some improvements to the high fidelity screens. I changed the search results to echo the news feed, with content encapsulated into posts and using drop shadows for clearer separation. I added arrows to the sides of the filters list to indicate that the list could be scrolled sideways. Finally I eliminated the blue color from my visual brand, and reduced the size of the success popup to make it less jarring.
Content encapsulated as on home screen, filters include directional arrows to indicate scrolling
Popup color changed and size reduced
Users can edit or delete any of their posts directly from the feed
Content encapsulated as on home screen, filters include directional arrows to indicate scrolling
Test: Second Round
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Most participants in the second round of testing were aided by the changes I made. No one commented on the success popup, nor on the list of search results. The filters list, however, still caused problems. The horizontal scrolling was not intuitive, and the directional arrows weren't enough to improve usability.
Analyze: Current Product
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CoPlant has the beginnings of an effective forum app that makes gardening approachable and fun. The minimum viable product enables users to create content, comment on what other users have done, and search for posts they may find helpful. They can communicate with people in whatever way they choose, a dynamic experience that makes the app open to possibilities. I believe that with expansion and small improvements, CoPlant could become a product that thousands of gardeners around the world would use each day.
Analyze: Future Developments
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User testing indicated that the horizontal scrolling on the filters list must be scrapped or drastically improved. Additionally, I would like to improve feedback on each screen so users can better understand where they are by glancing at the navigation bar or a progress meter. Beyond the scope of the current prototype, it would be great to add a bookmarking feature so users could save posts they were interested in. Gardening varies greatly by location, so adding some sort of geography or climate data on each post would be helpful. Finally, an important feature to avoid frustration would be a drafts folder. This would ensure no one loses progress on their post or comment if they run into an issue.
Conclusion
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Gardening is beneficial to physical and mental health, but it can be a complex practice with difficult questions. By researching, designing, and testing the CoPlant forum app, I hope to make gardening a bit less intimidating. CoPlant is a place for gardeners to share information and build connections. They can help each other improve, but also form social bonds with people who share their love of gardening. Growing together is more than a catchy slogan: it’s something we can all do with the proper tools.
