My Role:

UX Researcher & UX/UI Designer

Project Scope:

Solo, 2 weeks

Responsibilities:

User interviews, Affinity Mapping, Competitive & Comparative (C&C) Analysis, Journey Mapping, Persona, Information Architecture (IA), Card Sorting, Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Presentation

Tools:

Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, Google Workspace

What is Plant Foundry?

Plant Foundry is a woman-owned urban nursery and store in Sacramento. They sell a wide variety of products, from organic plants and supplies, to gardening tools and outdoor furniture, to books and home decor, you name it!

Their vision is to share their love and knowledge of plants with people at all stages of the gardening journey.

Opportunity:

Plant Foundry has built their own e-commerce site, but due to the limited time and knowledge on UX/UI, the site is left a bit disorganized and hard for users to navigate.

As a UX Designer, I will create an intuitive, aesthetically pleasing design that aligns with their brand and mission. To maximize positive impact, I’ll start with the user’s experience with plants and work backwards to identify and address gaps in the site.

By focusing on the user's experience with plants, this redesign can maximize positive impact by addressing user needs and highlighting Plant Foundry's strengths.

DESIGN THE RIGHT THING

Identify the experience and relationship between users and plants
(Generative)

Assess the website
(Evaluative)

= Define the right problem

User Interviews:

Since the majority of the customers going into this website are people with varying levels of interest in plants, I want to know their relationship and experience with plants. With this objective in mind, conducting user interviews provided insights into their behaviors, needs, and motivations for owning plants.

My user interviews revealed an unexpected finding: while I anticipated challenges in plant selection, a greater frustration for users was actually caring for their plants after purchase.

Plants are therapeutic

Having plants at home is not only aesthetically pleasing but also boosts users’ mood.

"Having indoor plants make the air smell fresher and improve my mood."

Inconsistent online information frustrates users who struggle to care for their complex plants, despite their best efforts.

"There are so many plants I like but I don’t know the proper care for them."

Users are not knowledgeable

Low maintenance plants are the “solution”

Users often lack confidence in their skills, so they tend to choose plants that are easy to care for.

"I’m not confident with my plant knowledge and skills. So I get plants that are easy to take care of."

Even with in-store plant experts, overwhelmed customers still resort to online research due to information overload.

"The local nursery we go to is really big, we aren't always able to find someone to help. Besides, there are so many questions, I just end up googling them myself."

Overwhelmed by initial questions

Difficulty selecting a plant stems from the underlying fear of failing to keep it alive.

Where did the problem occur?

With the data I collected from my user interviews, I was able to establish a journey map my persona goes through.

There are 3 pain points my persona comes across:

Exploration: they keep getting inconsistent info when researching on plants to buy.
Visit: they have trouble getting someone’s attention because the place is large and it’s a small business so there’s only a few staff there,
Post-Purchase: this is the result of the pain points they encountered earlier, thus it’s not something we could control.

This gives me context of what I can do to improve their interactions in those touchpoints. By fixing the first 2 pain points, I'll be able to create a more positive outcome for post-purchase.

Who are we helping? meet Dean Green!

After conducing user interviews with 4 participants, I want to build a persona for inexperienced plant owners. This will help me keep the target user in mind as I converge on formulating a problem statement for the website redesign.

“I’m not very knowledgeable about plants. I try to be better but it’s complex and it doesn’t always work out.”

What are some Usability problems on plant Foundry UI?

The website presents clear opportunities for improvement. I want to analyze and see where users may face frustration when navigating through the website.

With the help of Heuristic Evaluation, I was able to prioritize the necessary changes based on their severity.

Memorability - sign-in option is located on the bottom of the page.
Memorability - sign-in process is intricate, as it necessitates entering your email address and receiving a sign-in link via email for each login attempt.

Satisfaction - product list appears visually inconsistent, which may become overwhelming when the store offers a wide variety of items.
Learnability - absence of organization for products significantly hinders the ease of locating desired items.
Error Management - search feature delivers inconsistent results, occasionally displaying blog posts instead of relevant product listings.
Efficiency - absence of filters makes it time-consuming to wade through irrelevant options.
Learnability - presence of irrelevant products within specific categories complicates users' ability to discern which items correspond to each category.

PROBLEM

As an inexperienced plant owner, even if you manage to find info about plant care on the internet, how reliable is it really, considering that anyone online can claim to be a professional without any accountability? This is a problem arises in the exploration touchpoint.

Even with in-store plant professionals present, they are not always available, or users may not know what questions to ask. This is a problem arises in the visit touchpoint.

I was able to form the problem statement based on the combination of Dean’s needs and goals from the persona, and the pain points in his journey map.

Dean needs consistent and reliable instructions about plant care from a professional because he wants to feel confident that his place is lively with thriving plants as he works from home all the time.

Output = plant care instructions that are consistent and reliable from a professional.
Outcome = Dean will feel confident.

DESIGN THE THING RIGHT

How Might We (HMW):

After diverging as many HMWs as possible, I found these 3 to be the most helpful in bringing my solution to life.

2. HMW demonstrate plant care instructions to users?

This covers the technical part on what medium is the best way to educate our users.

1. HMW help users find the plant they are confident in caring for?

This involves a solution that requires educating users during the process of exploration on our site

3. HMW support users in keeping their plants thriving?

This informs us an even bigger picture in which a solution is needed for post-purchase. This will help build customer loyalty through trust in the long-term.

A holistic HMW approach that helps to find solutions for PRE & POST-purchase.

User Flow Design - Powered by HMW insights:

In attempt to answer these HMW questions, it gave me an idea of how my user flow should look like.

1. HMW help users find the plant they are confident in caring for?

When browsing our plants, users will be able to view care instructions of each plant at the same time.

2. HMW demonstrate plant care instructions to users?

To minimize the time of browsing a plant while reading care instructions, I intend to take advantage of hover state to display that.

3. HMW support users in keeping their plants thriving?

Account ownership is the channel to maintain an ongoing relationship with our users post-purchase. We need to explicitly inform users of the benefits of creating an account with us.

User Flow:

More than just water reminders:

Based on the user research, understanding the appropriate amount and frequency of watering your plant poses a challenge, while others also find dealing with various weather conditions for their different plants frustrating.
‍
To address this issue, I incorporated an option for users to provide their zip code. This allows us to send tailored plant care tips when a weather alert arises in their specified area.

Due to potential safety concerns, it is important to clearly state the exact purpose of the feature.

A Glimpse of the Mid-fi Wireframes:

OR explore the hi-fi prototype re-iterated based on usability test findings.

Hi-Fi Prototype

The redesign offers a more streamlined information architecture and personalized features for a more enjoyable user experience.

Time to put this to test:

Scenario:

You've recently moved out on your own and are eager to bring some greenery into your new home. However, with little experience in plant care, you're uncertain where to start. That's when you discovered Plant Foundry, a nearby nursery with an online shop. As you browsed their selection, you became intrigued by Air Plants and ultimately decided to make a purchase.

Tasks:

Browse for an indoor plant suitable for those who don't water frequently, and ultimately choose an Air Plant.
Create an account with Plant Foundry.
Make the purchase.

Findings

Recommendations

4/4 users successfully completed the task effortlessly, obtaining a plant they feel assured about nurturing, and relying on the provided care instructions for guidance.

Continue to find ways to improve the user's experience.

4/4 users didn't read the benefits details associated with creating an account. They stated that they don't naturally think much about the benefits of creating an account unless it pertains to purchasing something expensive.

Hierarchize the option of creating an account to emphasize the benefits it provides. - Place the option to create an account with details of its benefits at the top of the page, followed by the sign-in and guest checkout options.

Users appreciate the ability to view care instructions and assessing the plant's suitability for their caring style or environment by hovering over the product without losing their place. Nonetheless, they still need to hover around each item to find what suits them best.

Expand filter selections to include users' preferred plant care style, which should assist users in narrowing down their search and finding the most suitable plants more efficiently.

2/4 users found it inconvenient that by click on "add to cart" redirected them to the shopping cart page, causing them to lose their place on the site, particularly if they wished to continue browsing.

Create an instant overlay feature that confirms the addition of items to the cart without redirecting users to a separate page to ensure seamless experience.