View aster Prototype
aster,
a lifestyle app created to help plant people care for their houseplant’s needs.
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Introduction
aster,
a lifestyle app created to help plant people care for their houseplant’s needs.
In January of 2022 aster began to sprout, as an all-inclusive plant care App specifically designed to help plant parents, successfully care for all their houseplant needs.
The Roles and Responsibilities
This was a solo passion project set to be completed in 8 weeks, in the time allotted I will produce all branding, colorography, ideating, user research, wireframing, product designs, usability testing, and prototyping required, to fulfill this project.
The Problem and Solution
I have always found great joy in caring for our leafy friends, whether it is an amazing blooming cactus or a rare Aroid plant I love them all. I have read up and studied plants since I was a young boy, even requesting a Monstera Deliciosa for my 12th birthday. So when I was recently approached by a neighbor with a request to help them care for their houseplants, it made me think, who else can I help with this knowledge. And with that thought, aster began to germinate, as an all-inclusive plant care App specifically designed to help plant people with all levels of experience, successfully care for all their house plant needs.
Discover
The Process
The Goal
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Create a well recognizable logo and strong brand identity that will be well-received by the plant parent community.
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Create an end-to-end bespoke app to encompass all that is needed to help plant parents be more successful in caring for their plant children needs.
Key Features
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Welcoming home page, introduction, sign-up option, including aster avatar.
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Plant watering calendar, pop-up reminders.
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Plant parents collection of plants, keeps track of up to 20 plants, manually added from the list with pictures and care.
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Search archives, watch how-to videos, read about your favorite plants, and discover new ones.
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Search archives, watch how-to videos, read about your favorite plants, and discover new ones.
Target audience
Prior research has concluded Aster’s potential users has no restraints in age, gender or affluence. But with a massive, sustainable influx of millennials to this growing “new” again market, we are turning our focus towards plant parenting millennials..
The Competitor Analysis
Fortunately for Aster, the market is undersaturated, with the current choices being either very expensive or lacking content. This Analysis has also shown a light on the overwhelmingly apparent demand for better quality plant care apps with premium features.
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The Surveys
Research Survey : Summary of findings
See Survey
This survey was super insightful, each of the three participants provided multiple answers and or recommendations that justify proceeding with the creation of Aster.
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This set of interviews has confirmed that there is a market for this app; that the app Aster is in high demand, and has great potential to be successful.
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This also confirmed that all the features that we have planned to incorporate, are needed and will add great value and convenience to plant parents.
Key Findings
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100% of our participants stated, they would find great peace of mind using a plant care app like aster to help manage their plant’s needs.
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100% of participants find their plants to be somewhat part of the family and place a high value on their wellbeing.
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100% of participants found an added benefit, in that aster could help their family and friends care for their plants when out of town or if they are unable to care for their plants.
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100% of the participants found aster to be of great value, and openly stated they would happily pay for the app if priced at a reasonable cost.
Define
The Goals
The insights from user research were used to visualize a summary of the user, business and technical goals.
The Persona
Meet Riley, our user persona who is a young, passionate, non-binary in their early 30`s. They live in California, own a vegan bakery, and love their plant children.
The Site Map
The insights gained from the user interview’s helped us to formulate our initial sitemap
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Design
The Wire frames
These low-fidelity wireframes, showcase the basic watering reminder user flow.
The Branding
When ideating on the logo for aster; I kept in mind that aster needed to not only be approachable, but lovable to all ages and demographics.
View aster Prototype
The Final Product
“Seamless integration, Time saving and Convenient”
Create a well recognizable logo and strong brand identity that will be well-received by the plant parent community.
Create an end-to-end bespoke app to encompass all that is needed to help plant parents be more successful in caring for their plant children's needs.
Deliver
The Finishing touches
On final completion of the high fidelity mock-up and prototype, I conducted the usability testing with the three participants that volunteered. The data and input collected from usability testing were very insightful.
What we got right!
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100% of Participants said they would happily use and pay for the Aster App.
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100% of Participants connected with the avatar Aster as well s the concept behind the brand.
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100% of Participants admitted to needing a better way to keep track of their plant friends' needs.
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100% of Participants are open to the use of plant care apps.
What is needed?
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100% of Participants found the watering schedule useful.
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100% of Participants inquired about the possibility of expanded features.
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100% of Participants wanted a way to connect with other plant-friendly people.
Feature request
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A form of social networking “Aster Social Share” between plant-friendly people is already scheduled for a future upgrade or premium feature.
Score! We got it 99% right! only minor clerical issues were the main iterations performed on this project!
The Reflection
What’s next?
Now that phase one of aster is completed, it's time for phases two and three of the premium features to be brought to life. Followed by further usability testing and iterations, before being handed off to the developer.
Secondly, I would like to add an e-commerce aspect to aster for plants, pottery, and products.
Lastly, connecting aster to digital monitoring devices to be placed in the plant's soil that will relay live data to the aster app.
What I gained from this project!
I found a great deal of personal fulfillment in creating a project that I am so passionate about, I am looking forward to being a key factor in aster's growth and the prospect of blossoming into bigger things.
