Overview
Solo Project
UI/UX Case Study
Plantalda is a plant care mobile app to help plant care takers of all skills and experiences. The app was designed to tracks watering patterns, plant health, and as many plants as the user had. This project was strictly a prototype developed in 2021 as a case study for a UI seminar. I was inspired by my own love of plants and desire to suit their needs better, and to have a plant app that had a dark mode aesthetic and easier navigation.
Competitive Analysis
While researching plant apps, the market was very saturated. There was a broad selection of apps ranging from indoor plants, outdoor gardens, and a combination of the two. For research, I downloaded three apps: Planta, Vera and Gardenia. I found that while the apps looked nice, the layout itself was confusing and there were multiple ways to get to one area which was also confusing. A lot of the visuals were monotonous and subtle, which added to some of the confusion as nothing was grabbing my attention as a user. Out of the three, Planta was the best one as it offered tips on watering, sunlight, and fertilizing different types of plants, as well as a plant health tracker, countdowns to watering, and had a wide range of plants to choose from when adding a plant to the tracker. I found overall that Planta was a good place to start in terms of design.
Layout Mockups
After the sitemap was made, I made a low fidelity mockup, that focused on layout rather than aesthetic.
Usability Testing
Once the layout was set in a mockup, I brought the figma file into Maze for usability testing. I made a script to give users tasks to complete, and Maze made a heat map showing where users tapped during. Through testing, users wanted more contrast, and to see the dark mode concept I was planning as they thought the current look was bland.
Branding
My main goal with this project was to explore a dark mode version of a plant care app that had good contrast between elements. Through preference testing, testers preferred blue toned greens from the other options. While working to find a color palette, I was inspired by Subnautica, specifically the night cycle where all of the fish would glow and it was a good contrast compared to the dark ocean waters.
Final Prototype
As the project was ending, I worked to make a prototype that was a proof of concept and focused on showing off the dark mode palette.
Conclusion
Overall, this was an interesting project to do, especially trying to conduct testing and research during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a challenge to get many people to respond to surveys and to test the prototypes, but overall I think it ended in a prototype I was pleased with.