Sprout Society

Fostering strong community bonds through innovative aeroponic community gardening.

Timeline: 2 months

Role: Design Lead, User Research, UX Design

Collaborators: Solo Project

Initial Conception

I began wanting to make community gardens more efficient. It grew from there.

Traditional community gardens, limited by plot size, can only accommodate a small number of gardeners at once. I saw aeroponics as a solution to this problem and wondered if it could also help foster stronger social connections.

The Challenge

The biggest challenge was working with the current method of community gardening. Community gardens are very space-inefficient, limiting the number of people who can participate.

The Goal

To design an innovative app that enhances community garden efficiency through aeroponics and strengthens social connections among gardeners. By improving space utilization and fostering communication, the app aims to make community gardening more accessible and interactive.

Research

Community gardens—and what even is aeroponics?

First, I researched community gardens in San Marcos, finding two with about 40 plots between them available. That’s not very many, especially when they have to be rented out for a full year. Then I set out to learn more about aeroponics and how it could help solve my problem.

Aeroponics grows plants using nutrient-rich mist instead of soil or water, with roots suspended in the air and periodically misted. For this project, we chose tower aeroponics, where seeds are placed in foam pieces within small pots.

Takeaways

  1. Switching to aeroponic towers could increase total garden plots from 40 to 200, a 400% increase potential.

  2. Ensuring an easy plot reservation system is crucial to lowering barriers and increasing accessibility for our users.

  3. To emphasize community, our app will feature a dedicated page to foster connections and interactions among users.

Empathy Map

A visual tool to understand and empathize with users by mapping out their behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Says

I wanted to start gardening, but there are no more available plots!

It’s hard to know where to start.

I wish I could get help with gardening easier.

Does

Emails the local community gardens regularly to check on available spots.

Spends a lot of time doing research on gardening.

Thinks

They need more social connections in their life.

Growing their own food would benefit them, their community, and the planet.

Feels

Frustrated that it’s so hard to reserve plots at her local gardens.

Worried that when she does get a plot, she won’t be able to grow anything with her beginner skill level.

User Archetypes

Our research was well underway, enabling us to create archetypes for our target users. These personas help us target specific user needs, resulting in better interaction design.

The Plot Seeker

Behavior:

  • Expresses keen interest in gardening as a new hobby.

  • Actively seeks out community gardening opportunities due to living in an apartment.

  • Frustrated by the competitive and lengthy process of securing a garden plot.

Core Needs:

  • Access to a straightforward and streamlined plot reservation system.

  • Real-time updates on plot availability and position on the waitlist.

  • User-friendly interface that simplifies the process of managing gardening activities and interacting with fellow gardeners.

The Green, Green Thumb

Behavior:

  • Recently decided to explore gardening as a new hobby for outdoor activity and community engagement.

  • Values collaboration and seeks advice and guidance from experienced gardeners.

  • Struggles with the initial learning curve of gardening practices and techniques.

Core Needs:

  • Access to a supportive community of gardeners for collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

  • Tools and resources to facilitate learning and skill development in gardening.

  • A platform that encourages interaction and collaboration among gardeners to enhance their gardening experience.

User Journey

Execution

Low-Fidelity Mockups

My focus on the wireframes was to get the onboarding mapped out and nail down how I wanted my users to reserve their garden plots.

Takeaways

  1. After considering a couple of options I decided to use a similar approach that movie theaters take. Users could select on a map of the area, which plot they wanted.

  2. In my exploration, I thought of an extra feature for the app: A way for my users to control the aeroponics tower to fit the needs for their plants.

UI & Visual Design

Here I show the work I did for the branding. I worked on a few different ideas for the logo before landing on the one shown. All the ideas played with plants sprouting, and I added the smiley face to keep the main theme of community strong. The colors I went with are the ones you would expect for a garden app.

High-Fidelity Testing

I had all of the screens finished; the app flowed well and I was happy with all of the interaction. There was something wrong though. I wasn’t happy with it.

What went wrong?

I don’t actually think anything went wrong here. I was able to nail down the skeleton of what I wanted the app to be, I got all the interaction that I wanted, and it tested great with users. So I think what my high-fi became was more of a second draft. It gave me everything that I needed to make the final outcome as good as possible. So I moved on and started to refine what I had.

High-Fidelity— For real this time

The second draft made this stage easy! I took the good ideas I had and refined them while throwing out all of the bad.

Home & Onboard

Here we see the user loading into the app and growing to the sign-in tab.

Plot Reservation

All of the changes made were mainly UI elements. I moved the nav bar to the bottom and took away a lot of the unneeded “fluff”.

Reflection

Final Takeaways

My experience designing this app was up and down. I love the idea and really would like to see it implemented at some point, but when I thought I had finished it I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped. So I went back and made it even better, and now I have an end product I feel is really great.