Grand Garden Share

App Design 2023

Too many plants seems like not a real problem, but I know many gardeners who get to a point when their yard becomes overgrown and they have to start tossing perfectly wonderful plants because there is no space. Many plant trading and selling apps focus on specialty plants for sale and shipping them, while lots of the plants that I see getting tossed are extra starters for veggies, overgrown perennials that need to get dug up, or seeds exploding at the end of the season. My goal was to make a place where anyone could build a local community around sharing plants, cuttings, seeds, as well as being able to talk about local things related to gardening (in this case, the weather is exciting discussion!).

Research

Competitive Analysis

I did research on relevant apps. There are a few plant trading apps but the focus is on buying/selling marketplaces with shipping and it was my goal to make something about sharing without money exchanging that was local. Aside from plant apps I looked at apps that focused on community and giving items away. I made a board in Mural to tag with notes about what I thought was relevant, ideas that did/didn't support user tasks. I looked for UI patterns that would be familiar to my users to help them have an easier experience.

Mood Board

At the same time I worked on my mood board, I wanted something warm, comforting and friendly. I really wanted to make an atmosphere that was conducive to sharing. The name I used was inspired by the Great British Baking show, which is probably the friendliest reality show and I think has a similar feel/purpose that I was going for.

Findings From Research

• Potential users who own homes and garden are more likely to also be Facebook users (compared to other social media), I wanted to implement many UI patterns for interactions, using similar CTAs and placement so that interactions would feel more intuitive.
• The main tasks that I identified were posting and scrolling through exchange and community posts. I split up these sections and focused on what information users needed the most, like availability status, saving posts, contacting other users and tags for types of plants and care.
  
• Building trust is important when you are interacting with other users in person, verifying your account, a review system as well as reinforced branding help build that trust.

Sketches

Before I start the low fidelity designs I do some sketching to work out ideas. There is usually a lot of lists, deciding on what the focus is and basic ideas before I get to digital design work. I also come back to sketching a lot to rework things, its my favorite way to get ideas out.

Style Guide

My goal with the colors was to project a sense of warmth. During the process the colors had more greens, but while I was checking my colors with color blindness screen tests, it was important to find colors that worked together while also still looking clearly different and visible with the most common color blindness types and also in Grayscale mode.

I wanted the type to be modern and bold and grand. I picked the title screen type that went with branding that I liked, then selected a font for the main app that had similar sophistication, but was more legible at a smaller size.