Creating a houseplant diagnostics app that improves user experience in a competitive landscape.
Sprout is a houseplant care and diagnostics app. In an increasingly competitive landscape, I aimed to create an app that had the user experience at its heart. Apps that allow users to diagnose potential health issues and provide reminder notifications exist within the marketplace, however, in-depth competitive research and user interviews allowed me to identify pain points with existing offerings and provide features that solve these frustrations.
I utilised data gained from additional user testing to make changes to improve navigation and accessibility while also factoring in WCAG guidelines to ensure availability to the widest consumer.
Why did I build a houseplant diagnostics app?
Poor accuracy: The market is saturated with apps that focus on identifying the plant itself, alongside common ailments. Competitive research and feedback in my user interviews showed that while users like simplicity, they rarely benefit from accuracy leading to frustration.
Lack of market saturation: The market is competitive, however, fewer apps provide a higher-end, complete 360 product.
Poor user experience: For the apps that focus on a broader product similar to mine, users struggle with accuracy, lack of customisation, and have frustrations around the number of features sitting behind a paywall.
In looking to design the app, I wanted to target users with houseplants specifically to provide a clear focus and USP to the app. Similar apps exist in the marketplace, alongside e-commerce plant stores that aim to provide insight into the houseplants their customers purchase.
To better understand my users, define pain points, and create a differentiated product that could provide an enjoyable, usable, and equitable experience, I undertook competitive research, feature analysis, and user interviews. This data was supplemented by informative secondary research to support my findings.
Defined approach, strategic input.
“I like Planta and pay for premium. It could be better: 1) some incorrect growing requirements 2) slow or never add recommended plants 3) can’t create plant if not in database 4) defaults to their “common” name, not scientific, and some incorrect names 5) only one push notification 6) cant batch move plants between sites when moved seasonally 7) cant correct plant type when misidentified, must delete and create new 8) watering algorithm too spaced out on small terracotta pots.”
Let’s start with the generative research
I wanted to develop an understanding of the competitive landscape to better understand my users and how they value the current products in the marketplace. I looked at both direct and indirect competitors to gain the broadest sense of how my app might interplay with existing products. Below is a snapshot of this research.
Direct
Google Lens
Google Lens is an image recognition technology where the primary purpose is to provide users with relevant information about the objects, text, and scenes they encounter in the real world.
Strengths:
On testing, it appeared to provide accurate readings and results.
It integrates seamlessly with
Weaknesses:
Access requires the google app, however, it was also difficult to find within the app. This could lead to lack of adoption and user engagement.
There are reports of inconsistent performance, especially with more complex images.
Functionality is limited to users with a camera phone which may impact adoption or limit accessibility for the next billion users or those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
It searches directly into images and you then have to navigate to web search results. I struggled to do this easily and found the navigation not particularly intuitive.
Direct
Planta:
Planta provides individual care schedule and reminders for your plants, recommendations, step by step guides, identification, light meter readings to encourage better care for users houseplants.
Strengths:
The a more comprehensive functionality offering in the market.
Users value the scheduling and reminder features and appreciate the simplicity of the app.
The app isn’t limited to houseplants and aims to cover plants of all kinds.
The app is available in 13 languages
Weaknesses:
Many users struggle to see value for money as the cost of the app is $9.99 per month with no trial for premium which limits you to only a few features in the app.
While navigating the app, users frequently veer off the happy path due to lacks customisation across plant creation, task reminders and plant grouping.
The app is heavy on manual input for tasks, which is less of a problem for users with a few houseplants, but causes huge issues for those with larger gardens.
Issues with accuracy in camera reading which impacts the light reading feature and plant identification and diagnostics section.
Direct
Picture This:
Picture this provides plant identification and diagnostics through advanced image recognition software.
Strengths:
The app is simple in its offering and easy to use.
Weaknesses:
Users frequently complain of issues with accuracy.
While the app focuses on it’s select features, users have an expectation that it will provide a better product offering that it does.
The app is arguably too simple and doesn’t provide more in-depth information or identification around plant variety.
Indirect
Patch Plants:
Patch Plants is known for providing a wide range of indoor plants, including various species and sizes suitable for different spaces and preferences. They also offer care insights.
Strengths:
Patch offers educational resources, videos, courses, consultations and plant care tips to help customers properly care for their plants. This support can be valuable for individuals who are new to plant ownership or looking to improve their plant care skills.
Basic care needs are provided on each plant listing and detail clear and easy to understand instructions.
They have a strong brand presence and their website UX is clean, providing the user with a joyful experience.
Weaknesses:
The website features limited info to help you diagnose different plant varieties on spot.
The fee for plant care consultation is £25 for a 15 minute virtual consultation or £40 for 30 minutes virtual consultation which will be unattainable for many users.
User interviews
During the discovery phase, I wanted to add some further context to the user pain points I identified in my competitive research analysis. I conducted user interviews to provide some further qualitative and quantitative data to bolster my findings.
Participant 1
“I learned how to look after my plants in my 20s and now I’m looking to take that learning further.”
Age: 35
Occupation: Software Engineer
Location: Lisbon, Portugal (British ex-pat)
Has used other plant identification apps but has struggled with accuracy.
Values organisation and prefers simple routines.
Hybrid office worker.
Travels frequently but doesn’t change plantcare routine prior.
Her favourite apps are simple and leverage automation to reduce manual input.
Participant 2.
“I have a green thumb but I’m freelance so plant care on a budget is important to me.”
Age: 31
Occupation: Musician
Location: London, England
Has an older iPhone and largely uses his phone to research and read articles on Reddit or watch YouTube.
Detail-oriented and values in-depth knowledge.
Always takes advantage of a free trial and keeps expenses to a minimum unless he sees value.
Likes things to work and is likely to never use a product again if it doesn’t work as expected.
Participant 3.
“Every plant I buy dies in a few weeks - nothing I do works and I’ve tried everything!”
Age: 27
Occupation: HR Manager
Location: London, England
Leads an extremely busy lifestyle with a full-time job, part-time work at a restaurant, and a busy social life.
Would rather spend money on an evening with friends than an expensive app.
Struggles to keep houseplants alive but admires those that can keep them alive.
Happy to invest in houseplants but wants to know that it’ll help her keep them alive.
Define: Understanding users needs
Pain point 1.
The cost of buying and killing houseplants. The app will allow users to create custom schedules, alongside AI-led recommendations, to reduce the cost of throwing away houseplants.
Pain Point 2:
Frustrations with apps without a free premium trial. The app will have a subscription system that allows users to trial premium options, but we’ll also ensure the app remains useful as a free service.
Pain Point 3:
Users have experienced past frustrations with the accuracy of photo identification. The app will allow photo identification, but also allow users to choose images that represent common health problems.
Pain Point 4.
Users prefer apps with fewer user inputs that are led by automation and include high levels of customisation. The app will focus on reducing the amount of time spent in app by automating tasks where possible and include features that allow users to make changes in bulk. We’ll keep users on the happy path by ensuring customisation in plant and task creation and allowing user input within their own iteration of database plants.
“Brian needs timely, relevant, and accessible data regarding his houseplants to lengthen their lifespan to improve value for money and feel in control of their health.”
User Journey Mapping
I built out user journey maps and flows to better empathise with my users and understand their journey in the app. I wanted to identify areas for continuous learning and ensure the flow was simple to keep users engaged.
Bringing it to life.
On reviewing my paper wireframes, there were some core features and priorities that stood out to me. During the empathise stage, I learned that users valued simplicity and that identifying and moving through tasks was important. To create enhanced visibility on upcoming tasks, I created call-out bar that highlights tasks based on priority. Directly following on from this, is the ability to tick and complete “quick” tasks at speed.
The focus on customisation is clear from the outset, with the user’s individual garden “patches” clear and accessible from the home screen. Given it is a core USP, I’ve also included access to analytics and data in the navigation bar.
Prioritisation of care tasks to complete at a glance.
Information architecture that places value on user goal. “Add” is central to the app functionality. Analytics have been included in the navigation as a central feature and defining USP.
Focus on quick, easy-to-complete tasks with the ability to complete from the home screen. Users can easily navigate to upcoming tasks.
Plants organised into a customisable “patch” to make it easier to find individual plants and segment based on location, need, or other user identification methods.
How did it perform with users?
On the whole, users felt the app could add value to their every day life and valued the increased customisation available in the app. While they felt including insights and community support in the app was important, they didn’t feel as though there was much value to be gained from prioritising it on the home screen.
Missing features include a clear filtering system, which is especially important for those with multiple houseplants.
“Having insights on the app is helpful, but I don’t need it on the home screen if it’s in the navigation.”
“I have over 40 plants at home, I don’t want to spend ages scrolling through an app to find something to update data.”
When building the app, I wanted to explore designing an app in dark mode to ensure core features stood out more prominently through increased contrast. And, while the aim is the ensure users spend as little time on the app as possible navigating tasks and building plants, I wanted to ensure the accessibility was at the core of my design so aimed to improve eye strain and readability.
There was a keen focus on tracking meaningful data. While not a requirement, I wanted users to track data that could be used in reporting to better understand the health of their plants. While the aim is to use the data provided by users to feed AI recommendations for other users with similar plant types, this isn’t always accurate. Users can access their data to make data-driven decisions that feed into their tasks and schedule changes.
Building sprout was an iterative process. I took feedback throughout and made core changes like updating the font from PT Sans Narrow to PT Sans based on user feedback that narrow text was difficult to read.
While I have a final prototype, development isn’t over. I aim to undertake further iterative testing to see if I can improve user flow to increase the number of tasks tracked and plants created to increase user engagement.
