Bluum
Growing green gardens and reducing carbon footprint.
Roles & Responsibilities
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Project Lead
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User Research: Survey, Interviews, User Personas, Competitive Analysis, Affinity Mapping.
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UX Design: Blueprints, Taskflows, Prototyping & User testing.
Project Details
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Fall 2021
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10 Weeks
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Team: Alan Toleu, Lim Ing, Acalapati Priyatama
Final Deliverables
Overview
Roughly 25.2 billion tonnes of carbon are produced by cities yearly.
Outdoors gardens are not very environmentally healthy since:
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Common garden tools like lawnmowers and leaf blowers are gasoline-powered, emitting carbon into the air.
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Overuse of synthetic fertilizers is a source of Nitrous Oxide.
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The production of chemical pesticides racks up carbon emissions.
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Exposed soil during the winter or non- planting months are carbon releasers, emitting all its stored carbon into the air.
Problem
Carbon emissions are one of the key contributing factors to climate change. While cities contribute over 70% of the 25.2 billion tonnes of carbon we release into the atmosphere every year, urban residents can make a difference through green gardening.
How could we promote the creation of lush gardens for the environment, when it does so much harm at the same time?
Solution
Bluum is a one-stop source of beginner-friendly plant information and match plants to users’ lifestyles, and generate plans for their garden’s maintenance.
We enable users to envision garden designs by curating inspiration material, supporting bookmarking, and leveraging AR technology. Instilling green and environment-friendly habits by rejecting non-green products and spreading awareness through tailored suggestions and articles.
Our Methodology
Research Methods
Surveys (85)
User Interviews (8)
Scholarly Articles (10+)
Competitor Studies
Gauge feasibility of the opportunity space and scope target audience.
Gain in-depth insights on gardening and its issues.
Delve deeper into technicalities to create an impactful solution.
To gauge the competition in the market and identify opportunity area.
After collecting insightful data from our research methods, we affinitized the data to form insights before moving onto ideating and concepting.
Research Themes & Insights
We derrived three key insights from our affinitization process.
The designing process of a personal garden is highly visual-driven, and a constant work-in-progress.
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Garden designs are aesthetically- driven making the creative process highly visual.
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Users draw inspiration from images and sights from many aspects of their lives.
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Gardens also tend to be constant works-in-progress, with users constantly thinking up new ideas.
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Garden designing is a highly personal process that users seek to inject their personalities into.
Plant longevity mainly depends on how a plant’s needs fit its owner’s lifestyle.
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On the surface, plant maintenance seems to be the biggest concern when owning a plant.
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The real issue lies not in what maintenance entails, but in how the user's lifestyle has to adapt to it.
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To ensure preparedness, users want to be in-the-know about what a plant’s care routine entails.
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But accurate information is not always accessible and differs from climate to climate.
Most users assume that having plants is an eco-friendly act.
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Green gardening is not about the number of plants one has, but about the habits of the gardener.
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Many gardeners are not aware of green gardening habits and were surprised about it.
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Green gardening habits are not well-known and can also be hard to adopt due to their initial complexity.
HMW's
With the insights and user segments, we narrowed down to our top 6 HMW questions.
HMW use technology to help users visualize and create personalized garden designs?
HMW give users a centralized space to store all their inspiration material no matter the source?
HMW provide tailored local plant suggestions to users appeal to users' preferences?
HMW match users to plants based on their lifestyle to ensure plan longevity?
HMW help users devise and visualize a feasible plan for plant care before purchase?
HMW create a centralized, diverse, region-specific resource for detailed plant care?
Mindsets & Demographic Breakdown
Through our research findings, we decided to split our target audience by the size and capabilities of their garden and their lifestyle. We divided them into three different mindsets - The Busy Bee, The Balancer and The Easy-Goer.
Mindsets & Demographic Breakdown
Target Audience
Primary
The Busy Bee
The Busy bees need more help with getting into gardening and learning about green gardening.
Primary
The Balancer
Balancers need help with plant management, care, and green habits.
Secondary
The Easy-Goer
Catering for our primary target audience serves our Easy-Goers as well.
Ideation
After creating user mindsets and understanding our primary and secondary target audience's needs, we brainstormed ideas and mapped them onto an matrix.
Initial Concept Variation
Building A Dream Garden
A plant nursery with a paired application that enables aspiring gardeners to envision, design, and execute the garden of their dreams, without the carbon guilt.
Making Plant Care Accessible
A one-stop web and mobile app that provides climate-specific advice and help for plant maintenance, while advocating for green habits.
Sharing the Joy Planting
A customisable garden starter-kit gift set designed for a creative group-gardening session.
Merging Ideas
Based off the feedback received from experts, we decided to merge two of our main ideas.
Target Audience
Primary: Youth aged 14-19 living in poverty who are seeking a way out
The optimal age to help them climb out of poverty, with lasting impact.
Secondary: Social Workers aged 30+ seeking to help at-risk youth
Serve as a gateway for at-risk youth to access and obtain resources
HMW's
With the insights and user segments, we formulated many design questions and prioritized them into our top 4 questions.
HMW streamline the process of looking for resources and distributing them to teens and their families?
HMW help young students learn soft skills they otherwise don’t learn in school to help them out of poverty or at-risk situations?
Concept
The Web Portal
Concept
A strictly locally-sourced plant distributor with education and aesthetic-focused garden design companion app.
We enable users to envision garden designs by curating inspiration material, supporting bookmarking, and leveraging AR technology.
Advocating Green Habits
We instil green habits by rejecting non-green products and spreading awareness through tailored suggestions and short articles.
Expanding the community
We sell group-centric gardening starter-kit gift sets, an opportunity for gardeners to share their love for plants with friends and family.
Lowering Entry Level
We provide a one-stop source of beginner-friendly plant information, match plants to users’ lifestyles and generate plans for their garden’s maintenance.
Core Features
For you + Favorites
Tailoring Content
After a simple set-up form, bluum provides users with inspiring, tailored content.
Green Education
Features articles on green habits and locally-cultivated plants to promote green gardening.
Organize with Collections
Users can save content to their favorites page, and create custom collections.
My Garden
Know Your Plants
Purchased plants go straight to a user’s Garden, where they can have quick access to its Wiki.
Auto-Schedule
Plant care is automatically scheduled, and users may receive notification reminders.
AR View
Visualize Ideas
Using AR, users can create designs and preview plants in their desired space.
3D Nursery
Drawing from a 3D library of plants, users can have the freedom to experiment designs.
Save to a Collection
Once a user is satisfied with their design, they can save it to a collection or to their gallery.
Bluum Shop
Strictly Green
A strictly-local or state-wide, no-peat, no-plastic pot plant distributing shop.
Key Info Snapshots
Condensed key details give users a quick, comprehensive run-down of a plant product.
View in AR
Users can view a plant product in their space using AR and their smartphone camera.
Wireframes
AR View
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My Garden
Bluum Shop + For You
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My Cart & Check Out
Wireframes
User Testing
We conducted two rounds of user testing to validate our concept, test the usability, information architecture and heuristics.
Round 1
In our first round of user testing, we aimed to validate our concept features and tested if the labeling and organization of features fit the mental model of the user.
Open Card Sorting (8)
To understand the user’s mental model in regards to our app and organization
of features.
Concept Validation (8)
To validate the concept and features through experienced, beginner, and
non-gardeners.
Key Insights
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Key information about a plant should be accessible throughout the deciding phase.
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Green habits can be integrated with users’ maintenance routine to create relevance.
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Labels should aid in creating a personal experience for the users while navigating.
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Few gardening terminologies were complex to a beginner. Simpler terms should be used to fit the mental model.
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Adding a Photo ID-ing capability could make searching easier for non-expert users.
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The AR feature was not prominent enough in the app and navigating it was a challenge for a few users.
Improved Information Architecture & Task Flow
Round 2
In our second round of testing, we assed the usability of our navigation system, the usability of all key tasks, ensure heuristic values are upheld and find where the usability of minor features can be improved.
Usability Testing (8)
Uncover any usability issues and further improve the organisation of both major and minor features.
Heuristic Evaluation (8)
Enforce heuristic rules, and find areas where usability can potentially be improved upon.
Key Insights
Labels needed to be simplfied. Solved this by using self-eveident lables to solve the issue
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Similar page layout designs were causing confusion.
Solved this by creating easily distinguisable key pages.
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The AR view feature was not prominent enough.
Solved this by making feature easily accessible to the user.
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Task Flows
The task flow helped determine how the path a user would take navigate from one task to another.
Blueprint
Our goal was to organize and structure information within the app to help users navigate and determine the organisation of features in the wireframes.
Final Prototype
Next Steps
On - Boarding Design
Bluum is a multi-featured app, we want to make sure it is easily usable for users of all tech skill levels.
Creating Configuration Forms
Start creating our configuration forms and understand what data points we need from users to create tailored content
Developing a working prototype
Make a physical, working prototype that is automated and allows indoor farming
Explore the Indoor Farming Project
fin.
Download the Process Book