Planthaus
Myself, along with thousands of others, grew (pun intended :) ) a huge interest in taking care of house plants at the start of the pandemic. As this hobby turned into a passion, I realized I was missing a community of plant parents to connect with.
As I scoured the internet looking for a plant community, I noticed in different platforms that many people were getting rid of their plants, trading, and setting up ad-hoc plant meetups. Thus, the creation of this application was intended to fill a gap of creating one centralized location for the plant community.
Selling, trading, auctioning plants
Access to plant advice and tips
Scheduling plant meetups
Lack of platform that caters to e-commerce plant sales
Challenges marketing and reaching the right audience
Online scammers, ghost buyers
Users struggle to find out how be part of their local plant community
How can we improve the user experience of exchanging plants, while also promoting engagement in the local plant community?
Allow users to sell, giveaway, and auction off their plants. Include option for users to determine location for pickup.
Ability for two users to trade or swap plants with each other.
Robust search engine that allows users to narrow down search results
I dived into googling whatever I could find regarding the plant market online. I wanted to ensure that the market was saturated enough with interest, so that a product could have a viable market to sustain itself in. I also kept my eyes peeled to pick out any pain points that were voiced online as this would serve as a great starting point to grow from.
Houseplant demand surged during the pandemic by
In 2022, prices of houseplants have increased by
Millennials call themselves a plant parent
Houseplants can improve productivity by
After cross-analyzing various e-commerce platforms that encourage sellers and buyers to exchange goods, I found that they either lacked a community, lacked security protocols, or were only limited to shipping purchased items.
I needed to hear directly from an audience that had one or more houseplants and either participated with an online plant community or were looking to do so. This is where I zeroed in on the NYC community specifically, I found out that their location was a determining factor as to why they needed access to a seamless plant exchange process.
The issues that individuals faced during their process of listing their plants online included buyers ghosting, and needing to create multiple profiles across various accounts in order to reach a proper audience.
Finally, while many users had their motives for exchanging plants, many of them expressed a lack of community space to meet other plant owners in their area. Whether to ask a question, get tips on plant health, or organize an in-person plant swap, there was a need for this sense of belonging.
I created feature list which to be broken down and prioritized. I measured feasibility across priority, and while I did not have access to a developer, I did my best to make assumptions.
After I narrowed down my list, I created a sitemap to visualize hierarchy and placement. This also supported the creation of a user flow to navigate through the application and two task flows to support examples of listing a plant to exchange and submitting a trade swap.
Once I had all my elements and features laid out, I would be able to start incorporating them into low-fidelity wireframes.
I Included an onboarding screen + phone verification for users upon downloading the application to ensure that users were getting insight up front about the app, but also to provide as a security measure to limit duplicate profiles.
Feature Priotization: Search Filters
User interviews favored having options to filter by plant type, location, and type of exchange (sell, trade, free). This options was lacking across all direct competitors, so this would allow this app to stand out.
There can often be a sense of intimidation when someone is new to planting, thus my goal was to invoke opposite feelings such as comfort and acceptance.
All participants were able to successfully complete all tasks
The most consistent feedback was the lack of notifications when a trade request was made
Participants were excited about the overall design and were eager to start using it!
I implemented revisions based on user feedback. Users had the most difficulty understanding the next step after accepting a plant swap request. I re-designed the flow to add text instructions and introduced additional colors throughout the entire application to break up all the elements.
Designed with <3 by Klaudia Remiszewska
