Plantify
This was a semester-long project to create a solution using ubiquitous design from initial design to a functioning prototype. I worked with a group of three other students throughout the project utilizing our individual talents and working collaboratively. We worked through our process by utilizing user interviews, sketching/ideation, creating a diary study, user enactments, and finally creating a physical demo of our design.​
Timeline: 4 months (Jan. - Apr. 2021)
Role: User Experience Researcher/Designer
Survey & Interviews
We first began with a survey to gather initial information about plant care and to recruit for interviews and our diary study later on. We distributed our survey to friends, family, and to our cohort. We gathered 23 responses for the course of three days. We discussed some key issues with our users and caring for their plants such as watering and sunlight. We also discovered that many users had 7 or more low maintenance plants to take care of.
From the survey, we found participants to interview about their habits and experience with plant care. Part of our interview was introducing a 3-day diary study that provided us with in depth knowledge about our demographic's plant care routine. With this information, we moved on to the ideation phase.
Design Concepts
Each team member brainstormed and designed design concepts for moving forward and we came together and voted for our top three choices based on their functionality, accessibility, and connectivity.
Storyboards
Using our top three design concepts, we used Canva to create a daily scenario storyboard for each concept. These helped steer our design to the most functional and accessible option to carry to our next step.
User Enactments
Moving forward, we choose the design concept 1 to create a Bluetooth powered stick that could be placed in the soil of a plant and could be used to track a plant's moisture levels and soil pH levels with visual indicators via the stick itself and by a related phone app.
Our user enactments involved 5 participants within our chosen demographic to perform 6 scenarios.
Physical Prototype
In designing our physical design concept, we focused on the visual representation aspect that provides users an alert through colored LEDs to when a plant needs attention (in this case, if the plant needs water).
User Interface Prototype
The overview of the interface are represented in the pictures below showcasing the main page where each Plantify device is listed alongside the recommended information page, add a device page, add plant information page, and add guest user page.
Finished Product Design
Learn more by visiting our project webpage: