Identify
Understand what is happening to a plant.
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Caring for a plant seems simple until something goes wrong.
What is happening to it?
How can I help it recover?
Am I doing the right thing?
The problem was not a lack of information, but the difficulty of turning scattered information into a clear decision.
Plant-Me was created to transform that uncertainty into a clearer, guided and easier-to-follow care experience.
- My role
- Interviewed users and mapped their user journeys
- Designed navigation around the most frequent tasks
- Prioritised scanning as the main action after spotting friction in testing
- Tested the interface and adjusted hierarchy based on the results
- Result
- Mobile app redesign
- Tools
- Figma · Optimal Workshop · Google Forms
It was not about offering more information, but about helping people make better decisions.
Recommend
Turn scattered information into clear steps.
Support
Make follow-up easier without adding complexity.
Understand before
designing.
Before defining the interface, I needed to understand how people actually cared for their plants and what difficulties they found during that process.
Interviews, the survey and benchmark analysis revealed three insights that guided every design decision.
People were not looking to learn more about plants.
They needed to know what to do when a specific problem appeared.
Information was scattered.
Solving one question meant consulting different sources, creating more uncertainty than confidence.
The phone was already part of the process.
The camera, immediate access and in-context use made the phone the most suitable environment for supporting daily care.
Interviews5
In-person, 20–40 min, with and without prior plant-care experience.
Survey20
Online responses, to validate the patterns at scale.
FindingDidn't know common plant diseases.The finding that made photo-based diagnosis the core feature.
Ana · 32 · Nurse
Experienced caretaker
She lives with several plants, learns independently and looks for reliable information to anticipate problems.
Juan · 25 · Student
Gardening beginner
He has just bought his first plant. He needs to understand the essentials and act without checking multiple sources.
User Journey Maps
From behaviour to design decision.
The journeys keep only the points that help explain what needed to change in the interface.
- User action
- Pain point
- Design response
Ana:Staying in control
DiscoversEvaluatesCaresContinues
User action
Looks for specific information.
Compares advice and features.
Organises care by plant.
Checks alerts and progress.
Pain point
Scattered sources.
Advice is too generic.
Information lacks priority.
Easy to forget to return to the app.
Design response
Clear benefits from the start.
FAQ and contextual help.
Personalised dashboard and calendar.
Relevant reminders.
Juan:Solving an urgent issue
AccessesDiagnosesSolvesReturns
User action
Creates an account or logs in.
Scans a sick plant.
Checks care tips and supplies.
Checks its progress.
Pain point
Does not yet understand the value.
Does not know where to start the scan.
Does not know which solution to prioritise.
Has no follow-up habit.
Design response
Short, explanatory access.
Visible camera CTA.
Ordered, actionable steps.
Simple guidance and reminders.
From sketch to flow
Paper before pixels.
Every screen was sketched by hand first, marking key points — buttons, messages and decisions — in colour.
Two journeys.
One shared logic.
The flows connect orientation, diagnosis and action without forcing users to interpret technical information on their own.
Card sorting11
Card-sorting participants, to define how sections should be grouped and labelled before finalising the navigation.
Entry and support
Introduce help before asking for decisions.
The first journey links download, registration or access, welcome and tutorial. It then leads to the home screen and Guide-Me, progressively introducing guided plant care.
- Access and registration
- Contextual onboarding
- Entry into guided care
Diagnosis and guidance
Turn a visual signal into a concrete action.
The second journey starts with a leaf scan, presents the diagnosis and leads to care recommendations and concrete solutions.
- Scanning and identification
- Diagnosis and recommendations
- Care plan
Insights turned
into decisions.
Each interface decision responds to a need identified during research.
The goal was not to add features, but to reduce uncertainty and make daily plant care easier.
Design around tasks
From categories to frequent actions.
Insight:People needed to solve specific tasks.
Decision: Instead of organising the app by categories, I structured navigation around the actions users perform most often: identifying a plant, checking its care or following up.
Result: Navigation is connected to what the user needs to do.
A centre for daily care
My Home as the starting point.
Insight:Care needed continuity.
Decision: "My Home" became the starting point for the whole experience. It brings together plant status, care calendar, recommendations and access to diagnosis.
Result: Daily care is gathered in a single view.
Make what matters visible
Scanning as the main action.
Insight:The user needed to know what was happening to a plant without going through several steps.
Decision: Scanning became prominent in the main flow to reduce the steps needed to get a recommendation.
Result: The critical action appears earlier and more clearly.
Iterate from testing
Adjust the hierarchy of actions.
Insight:Usability testing detected small friction points.
Decision: Adjust the visual hierarchy of the main actions.
Result: Access, orientation and scanning gain clarity without adding complexity.
Adjustments after
testing.
3
real users2 tasks: sign-up and plant scan
I tested the prototype recording screen and audio while they completed two tasks: signing up and scanning a plant.
Before / after
More clarity without adding complexity.
ProblemIn testing, all three people hesitated over where to tap to scan a plant: the camera was hidden among other options and the diagnosis took several steps to appear.
SolutionI turned scanning into the main action on the home screen, with a large, persistent camera button leading straight to the diagnosis.
These improvements came directly from testing, not intuition: I reorganised access, welcome and scanning so the experience could guide the next step better.
More direct entry.
Access was simplified to prevent registration from blocking initial exploration.
Visible loading, zero extra taps.
All three users expected the welcome screen to change on its own; I added a loading indicator so it would advance automatically, with no need to tap the screen.
More visible scanning.
All three struggled to find where to scan: the camera CTA gained presence so diagnosis could start without a prior search.
The final experience
The result is a mobile app designed to support plant care in a simple way, reducing uncertainty through a clear, guided and action-centred experience.
Starting point.
Main action.
Clear reading.
Next step.
08 / Looking back
Looking back
Plant-Me allowed me to see how good research not only helps understand people, but also helps make better design decisions.
If I continued developing the project, I would go deeper into personalised recommendations and validate the experience with more users to keep refining the product.
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