EverGreen
Evergreen is a mobile app designed to help plant parents understand and care for their houseplants effortlessly, while connecting them with a vibrant community of fellow plant lovers. Share tips, ask questions, and celebrate your plant successes together. With healthy, happy plants, you’ll find joy and relaxation blooming in your life!
Plants bring life to spaces, improve air quality, and positively impact mental well-being. Many people find joy and fulfillment in caring for plants, making them more than just decorations. EverGreen nurtures this connection by simplifying plant care and enhancing the experience.
Nature at Home
Exploring Users
Understanding our target audience was crucial before starting the design process. Who were these potential plant owners? Whether someone was just starting their plant journey or had years of experience, their needs would vary significantly.
Planning Research
Working alone made planning research quite challenging. It was hard to find users willing to take time to answer my questions. To make it easier for them, I created a simple questionnaire and shared it with my social circle and UX communities.
Interview Participants
The research involved plant lovers of different expertise levels—beginners, home gardeners, working professionals, and plant experts. Each group provided valuable insights into what they expect from a plant care assistant.
Interview Goals
The focus was on understanding key pain points, such as forgetting to water plants, not knowing how to treat diseases, and struggling to identify plant species. Additionally, we explored users' preferences for community engagement, notifications, and gamification.
Users expressed a strong need for a quick plant identification tool, a simple reminder system, and an interactive way to learn plant care. Many also wished for a space where they could discuss plants with like-minded people, leading to the development of the community feature.
The Emotional Connection to Plants
Caring for plants is more than just a hobby—it’s an experience that brings joy, relaxation, and a sense of fulfillment. My initial research revealed that many plant owners see their plants as more than decoration; they view them as companions that enhance their well-being.
Plants and Emotions
One of the main reasons people bring plants into their homes is the positive impact on their mental state. Whether it’s the calming presence of greenery or the satisfaction of nurturing life, emotions play a key role in the plant-care journey.
However, when a plant dies, it’s not just a lost decoration—it can leave people feeling frustrated, guilty, or even deeply disappointed. Studies suggest that around 80% of plant owners experience negative emotions when they accidentally kill a plant, reinforcing the strong emotional bond people form with their greenery.
More Than Just Decor
A SIMPLE SOLUTION
The app simplifies plant care with three key features: Identify, Water, and Diagnose, making everyday tasks seamless and stress-free. To keep users engaged, it introduces gamification elements like rewards and achievements, turning plant care into a fun and rewarding journey. Positive feedback loops celebrate milestones, creating moments of joy and encouraging a deeper connection with their plants.
The built-in community feature allows users to connect, share tips, and inspire one another, fostering a supportive space where both plants and their caretakers thrive.
Identify & Learn
The first step is for users to add plants to their personal garden collection by simply scanning the plant. If the plant cannot be identified through scanning, users have the option to manually search for it and add it to their garden. Once the plants are added, users can explore detailed information about their "plant babies," allowing them to learn extensively about their care and needs.
Design Thinking Process
The essential stages of the UI/UX design process—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test where I understand user needs, define problems, brainstorm solutions, create prototypes, and validate designs through testing to enhance user experience.
Water & Get Reminder
Forgetting to water plants is a common issue. EverGreen allows users to set watering schedules for each plant and receive timely reminders, ensuring they maintain healthy plants without extra effort.
Diagnose & Get Solutions
Put on Your Best Smile
Plant care should be fun and rewarding! The app includes gamification elements such as badges, achievements, and a plant-loving community where users can share their plant journeys, ask for tips, and celebrate milestones together.
Prototyping EverGreen : from seed to tree
Transforming EverGreen from an idea into a functional app required several iterations of prototyping, testing, and refining the user experience.
Designing the first screens
After some paper wireframe design, I moved on to building low-fidelity prototypes using Figma..
Wireframing
User Testing
After each design step, I conducted usability studies with as many people as I could find. It was challenging because I didn’t have many resources or access to a large group of users, but I was able to gather valuable feedback from those interviews. This helped me improve my Low-fi and High-fi prototypes over time.
Final Prototype
After the final testing, I realized that although the feedback was positive, many users weren't sure how to navigate the app's features. To address this, I decided to start the user journey with onboarding screens to guide them through the app.
EverGreen aims to solve plant parent problems .Key functionalities in the app are:
Home & Garden Management.
Smart identification system to know more about their plantss through camera scanning.
Plant Care Features.
Diagnostic Tools.
Community Features
Increased Efficiency
Users report significant time savings and improved productivity through optimized scheduling recommendations.
Positive User Feedback
High user satisfaction ratings and positive reviews highlight the app's intuitive interface and powerful AI capabilities.
Features that could have been
User feedback gave me plenty of ideas to improve the Evergreen app with new features, but limited time meant I had to conclude the project,
Areas of Improvement:
Weather-Based Care Suggestions – The app could analyze local weather conditions and provide personalized watering or care recommendations.
Chatbot –A Virtual Plant Care Assistant could bring a more personal touch to the app, acting like a friendly plant companion that offers care tips, gentle reminders, and words of encouragement, making plant care feel more intuitive and emotionally rewarding.
Plant Growth Tracking –This feature allows users to scan their plants, track growth progress over time, and monitor key milestones for a more engaging and rewarding plant care experience.
Final Results
Style guides
The style guide defines EverGreen’s design system, including typography, colors, buttons, and icons. It ensures a consistent and visually appealing user experience across the app.
Personification
EverGreen adds personality and fun to plant care, making users feel connected to their green companions.
Nicknaming Plants
Users can give each plant a unique name, making them feel more like companions rather than objects. This feature adds emotional value to the plant-care experience.
Emotional Rewards
The app provides positive reinforcements through motivational messages like "Great Job! You made Maxi so happy!" after watering a plant. This small encouragement keeps users engaged.
Gamification Elements
To make plant care exciting, EverGreen includes badges, levels, and achievements. Users can unlock rewards for consistent plant care, diagnosing sick plants, and contributing to the community.
Key Features of EverGreen App
EverGreen is packed with features designed to make plant care easy, engaging, and interactive:
🏠 Home Dashboard: Displays daily plant-care tasks, reminders, and personalized tips at a glance.
🌱 My Garden: A dedicated section for users to organize, track, and monitor their plants efficiently.
📸 AI Plant Identification: Instantly recognizes plants and provides care tips through camera scanning.
🔍 Diagnosis & Solutions: Detects plant diseases and suggests remedies based on AI-powered analysis.
⏰ Watering Reminders: Customizable alerts ensure users never forget to water their plants.
🌍 Community Section: A social hub where users can share posts, join events, and interact with other plant lovers.
