Urban Oasis
UX/UI case study
About The Project
Urban Oasis is a user-centered app designed to help gardeners of all levels to grow vegetables on their small outdoor spaces in European urban areas by providing them with the tools and knowledge necessary.
My role
As part of my Allwomen UX/UI design course, I conducted user research and utilized the findings to create user flows, wireframes, and prototype.
Project duration
8 weeks
Design toolkit
Problem Statement
The urban citizen that have access to an outdoor space have the opportunity to built their own urban garden to be abble to eat local and seasonal food on a small scale and incorporate nature into their daily lives.
However, many of them, myself included, lack the necessary expertise to successfully cultivate their own vegetables.
Design Process
Empathize
- Quantitative Research
- Qualitative Research
Define
- Affinity map
- Insights
- Persona
- HMW's
Ideate
- Sitemap
- Userflow
- Sketches
Design
- Low and Mid-Fi Wireframes
- Prototyping
Test
- Usability Testing
Timeline
Research Goal
- 01 Discover if urban citizen are interested in growing a small production of vegetables, and why.
- 02 Discover what people like and dislike about living the city life.
- 03 Understand the potiental target by discovering if people already practice gardening and why.
Online Survey
18 participants
27,8% of the participants always consume seasonal vegetables.
72,2% of the participants living in the city have an outdoor space.
73% of the participants living in the city practice some kind of gardening.
61,1% of the participants never used or considered using an app to support their gardening activity.
Interviews and Affinity Map
4 interviews of people in their 30’s leaving in the city and having an outdoor space.
Key Insights
Reason to quit gardening
The urban citizen that have access to an outdoor space have the opportunity to built their own urban garden to be abble to eat local and seasonal food on a small scale and incorporate nature into their daily lives.
Sources of informations
When looking for information about gardening, people tend search from different resources and it’s time consuming.
The missing part...
Urban citizen tend to miss nature that’s why they prefer houses with an external space so they can spend their freetime outside and reconnect with nature by, for example, growing plants.
Gardening = Hobby
People that are growing vegetables in the city do it for fun, as a game to see the result of their work because they know that they won’t feed themselves with their own production.
User Persona
The eco-friendly gardening lover
Is 36 years old, lives in Barcelona, loves spending time outside and owns a balcony.
Pain points
- Loves living in the city but misses green spaces.
- Is quite busy with work and family.
- Doesn’t have much gardening skills.
Needs
- Finding quality and trutsful information about gardening.
Goals
- Wants to eat seasonal vegetables.
- Wants to keep learning about gardening.
HMW’s
How might we...
Ensure success in people's process of urban gardening to prevent deception/to ensure satisfaction?
How might we...
Help people to learn about gardening in an effective way so they don’t loose their freetime searching for too long for information?
How might we...
Improve the fun part in people's process of urban gardening?
By offering 3 main features:
- Select and offer informations from different sources (Expert, articles, tutorials, recipes).
- Show a daily to do list and a tasks reminder.
- Give an easy access to buy seeds, starter kits and other items.
Main User Flow
The main user’s flow begins on the app's homepage, it guides the users to find vegetables based on their preferences and requirements, with an intuitive interface that enables easy navigation and exploration of options. Users can make informed choices that suit their needs.
Sketches and concept
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Design System
Prototype and Usability Testing
Usability test’s findings
The users land directly on the home page and I asked them to add a specific vegetable (the radish) to their virtual garden and purchase the coresponding seeds.
- Improve the onboarding screens by adding “Next” and “Back” buttons.
- Improve the general veggie’s page by providing more context and information to the user about how the vegetables are specifically chosen for their space and geographic zone.
- Provide general information about each vegetable on the general veggie’s page, such as nutritional or maintenance informations and cooking tips.
- Clearly indicate the possibility of scrolling down on the pages where the content exceeds the initial screen view, and ensure that the scrolling function is smooth and user-friendly.
- Establish a clear hierarchy between the buttons on the shop page, with the most important button being more prominent and visually distinct, using shadows or other design elements to create contrast and improve visibility.
- Clarify the purpose of the vegetable section on the top of the homepage by providing a brief title.
Onboarding screens
Final Prototype
What’s next?
Here is the list of features that could be developed to improve the app in the futur
Social
Connect with your neighbours to share your harvest, to take care of each others plants, to organize cooking events.
Gamification
Add rewards and points, badges and progress bar to keep the user engaged.
Tracking
Follow the evolution of your plants from your phone thanks to a camera.
Internal webshop
Develop an internal webshop.