Overview

DURATION

May 2019 - August 2019

ROLE

Product Design Intern / 1 Designer, 1 Content Strategist, 3 Engineers, 1 Project Manager

SKILLS

User Research, Product Thinking, User Experience Design, Visual Design, Interaction Design, User Testing

TOOLS

Sketch, Figma, InVision

Context

Design and build Plantt.com, a customer-centric shopping experience that connects local garden nurseries with consumers.

The goal of this e-commerce marketplace is to give an online presence to local garden nurseries--in other words, an Amazon for local garden centers. With Plantt’s platform, we want to provide the best experience and resources for consumers in terms of gardening-related purchases, care, and projects.

Initial Question

How can Plantt.com improve the shopping experience at local garden centers, and improve the gardening lifecycle as a whole?

We first set out to talk to our target audience: gardeners and consumers who have experience shopping at local garden centers and nurseries. We wanted to get a sense of these consumers’ current behavior with the gardening cycle, especially the pain points that consumers experience when purchasing plants and other gardening-related products from garden centers. 

Research

Qualitative & Quantitative User Interviews 

We first interviewed 18 individuals with varying levels of expertise in gardening, and a variety of different gardens and collections of plants, ranging from a few houseplants to a thriving edible garden.

18 qualitative interviews left us with a lot to think about! We were able to further connect the dots between our research findings and our target personas through a survey of 450 individuals. 

Their Problem

“I want to spend less time researching and more time gardening!”

No matter their differences, both personas find shopping for gardening goods at local garden centers to be inconvenient and fragmented, and tackling the gardening the lifecycle can be intimidating and time-consuming.

The Solution

Make Plantt.com a reliable gardening “companion” that stays with you through the gardening lifecycle, from purchase onwards. Specifically, Plantt.com will:

1. Help users make informed and efficient decisions when purchasing plants.

2. Help users tackle year-round and local garden care with purchased plants.

Brainstorming

Market Research

As a way to gain insights into the user flow and content requirements, the next step in my design process was doing research on competitors, as well as platforms with a similar user experience.

Some examples of competitors I analyzed were The Sill, Monrovia, and BloomIQ. Some examples of marketplaces I analyzed were InstaCart, Mercato, and Houzz.

Ideation

User Flows & Content Requirements

Based on the marketplaces and competitors we had analyzed, we brainstormed two models for the shopping and their flows:

Product-Centric Model: Focused on plant discovery.

Nursery-Centric Model: Focused on purchasing locally.

Initial Sketches

To start bringing both of these flows to life and in front of users, we made rough sketches of each model. This helped set the foundation for the low to medium-fidelity screens that we wanted to user test.

Medium Fidelities

Deciding Which Model to Choose: User Testing

Medium-Fidelity Prototypes

I proceeded to create the rough, low-to-medium fidelity screens for the two flows, and tested the two prototypes for usability and preference with 8 users.

User Testing Findings

Our findings were surprising! We found that preferences were split half and half between both models (4 for nursery-centric model and 4 for product-centric model). However, the nursery-centric model had more positive feedback than negative feedback, while the feedback for the product-centric model was more negative than positive.

And, probably our most major finding:

The creative, imaginative, confident Passionate Hobbyist preferred the product-centric model, while the get-it-done, busy, efficient Weekend Warrior preferred the nursery-centric model.

Because the Weekend Warrior persona makes up a larger segment of our market, we decided to move forward with the nursery-centric model.

Part 1: Explore Nurseries

The first flow we had to explore was the experience that users see when they enter their zipcode. We explored two different UI layouts and flows that resembled two different existing market places:

1. Option 1 (resembles Instacart): Select one store and enter that store’s in-store shopping experience to search for specific items. Can toggle between different stores.

2. Option 2 (resembles Mercato): Products at each store are laid out for browsing within the same page through a horizontal scroll, and dynamically changes items listed out based on searches.

Chosen Model: InstaCart Model.

Why? Better balance between consumers’ need for a good shopping experience, and nurseries’ need to not be “shopped against each other”

Part 2: Discover a Nursery (aka Select a Nursery)

In V1, we had come up with several explorations of the nursery information cards: some that emphasized their contact information more, some that emphasized ratings more, and some that emphasized the nursery’s “specialties” more. 

However, through user testing, we found something quite surprising: users express that the information on the cards to be hard to follow due to the small fonts, as well as overwhelming when organized in a grid layout. We also found that users didn’t know what would happen when they selected one of the nurseries; would they see more information about the nursery? Would they be taken to a different website, or an in-store experience?

Due to the results from user testing, in V2 iterations we decided to break the list of nurseries and the information about the nursery into two steps: the grid layout (as it focuses on discovery), and then a modal when a nursery is selected, which gives the user all the information about a nursery.

Browse Plants at a Nursery

We explored different interaction design options for the product cards, as well as information hierarchy options, such as location of key characteristics, location of shipping and availability, and whether or not the information should be included in a hover or directly on card.

Users were most interested in learning about quick key characteristics about a plant because it helps them initially assess a plant for their needs, and didn’t need to see information on shipping and delivery details if this information was included on the product page.

Learn About Plant

The final part of the experience that we explored before the “add-to-cart” step was selecting a plant to look at information about the plant, and learn more about it. We took information from user research to determine what information categories and content had to be included in the plant information page.

From user testing explorations of this page, users felt that the page was text-heavy, and included too much scrolling when reading through all the information about a plant.

From user testing, we made plant information digestible, through the use of toggling between information categories, and the use of information cards to compartmentalize each aspect of the learning process.

Final Experience

Discover Nurseries In Your Area

Learn about the different nurseries and garden centers around you so you can make the most out of your visits and purchases.

Find Real-Time Plant Availability At Your Local Garden Center

Search or browse for the plants that your local garden centers happen to carry in order to plan your purchases better and more efficiently.

Do All Your Plant-Related Research in One Place

Read up on care instructions, troubleshooting advice, and more about plants directly from the nursery you purchased from.

Walkthrough Video

Conclusion

Reflection & Takeaways

This platform is the next big chapter at Plantt, and having the opportunity to kick start the product design process for Plantt.com was extremely challenging yet rewarding!

From this project, I learned how to maneuver around constraints and tradeoffs, and find a balance between satisfying the company's needs and the user's needs. I learned that every feature that I may design might not be completely feasible due to engineering and business constraints, and the challenge of having to design alternative options that provide value to users. 

I got to create actionable designs through every iteration, and refine them through in-depth user testing. I also had the opportunity to speak with stakeholders and potential users, and find a middle ground that will work for both parties; the process of interviewing many participants and conducting a multitude of user testing sessions not only helped push me out of my comfort zone, but also helped me empathize with users, which was crucial to my design process.

Next Steps

The next steps for Plantt.com are to:

• Conduct more user testing on granular features of site (filters, etc.)

• Adding more dynamic features to the plant information page, such as interactive diagrams (not possible at the moment due to engineering constraints)

• Introducing personalized and engaging content to aid users in plant discovery, such as design tools, wish lists, etc.