Smart vegetable gardening App designed for busy office workers who want to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Users can grow vegetables at a company smart farm.
Project
Team (Sue Hong, Yunyoung Jang, Woorim Jung)
Duration
5 Months
Aug 2021 ~ Dec 2021
My Role
Research 33%, UXUI 70%, 3D Graphic 100%
Tools
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, After effects, Cinema 4D
Number of urban gardens
South Korea, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, ‘Urban Agriculture Status Survey, 2024.01’
What if companies were to have "smart farm" devices in their communal lounges?
With these common barriers in mind, we wanted to explore an efficient way to grow edible vegetables without the hindrance of a suitable space or consistent cultivation. So, in order to address the problems facing home farming, we formed a hypothesis.
Smart farm
An indoor smart agriculture system, allowing easy crop management regardless of time and place.
Provides smart farm devices and services farm
Shares space to place the devices and resting place
In-house lounge
A space where office workers frequently visit to rest and can accommodate multiple personal smart farm devices.
1
For working individuals who want to enjoy nourishing food and who want the rewarding experience of growing it themselves.
This app was designed for office workers who have busy schedules but are also wanting to enjoy healthy foods. The act of gardening is also beneficial because it was a fun and rewarding activity.
2
For working individuals who want to invest minimal time and energy into a new hobby.
This app was designed for office workers who have busy schedules but are also wanting to enjoy healthy foods. The act of gardening is also beneficial because it was a fun and rewarding activity.
3
For working individuals who are looking to incorporate more vegetables into their regular diet.
This app was designed for office workers who have busy schedules but are also wanting to enjoy healthy foods. The act of gardening is also beneficial because it was a fun and rewarding activity.
Manager’s opinion on in-house smart farm service
We asked managers about the pros and cons of establishing an in-house smart farm in their companies. This is because utilizing the communal space for the gardens needs the allowance of authorities. To sum up, both supervisors worried that benefits of smart farm might be lower than the economic investment. Also, they mentioned time loss from employees' smart farm hobby.
1. Kwang Hee Hong
Executive of a large company, 34 years of experience
• I’m concerned about that employees might spend too much time on gardening. What I don't want is that they constantly go to the lounge and hang out during work hours.
• While it is voluntary for individuals to take care of their flower pots, smart farms are non-voluntary in that they require participation after building all the machines and space.
• Therefore it is questionable whether it will be implemented purely based on the individual's will.
2. Yongseon Lee
Co-founder, development team leader, 10 years of experience
• Given that you have to go to the smart farm periodically for maintenance, it would be nice to be able to get some mandatory refresh.
• From the management's point of view, this is not very positive. The reason is that the company prefers not to be influenced by employees' likes and dislikes when introducing something new and spending space and money.
• I don't know how much time will be invested into the activity because I haven't tried gardening with a smart farm.
User mental model
A potential schedule of when employees are most likely to use the garden
In order to identify amount of time that the hobby takes, we conducted a number of interviews with employees who were asked about their daily work routine, when they arrive or leave work, and when they take their lunch break, etc. Organizing the responses, a mental model method was useful to figure out the behavior patterns of the office workers.
Indepth interview 2
People who have first hand experiences of personal smart farm devices
Goal Understanding the smart farm usage process, advantages and inconvenience Duration 08.29.2021 ~ 05.09.2021 Interviewee 6 people Condition More than 1month of smart gardening and at least 3 months of cultivation experience
Interview Insights
1. Steps to using a smart farm
2. The reason interviewees started smart farming
• The majority of the interviewees had a prior interest in cooking and were looking for an opportunity to grow their own produce which they could then incorporate into their home-cooked meals. • There were also people who grew plants for decorative purposes for their homes.
3. First steps to growing your garden
• When the sprouts first start to emerge, it's necessary to thin them out manually with tweezers. This will weed out the weak sprouts and leave the strong sprouts in the soil to flourish. • In terms of upkeep, the sprouts should be watered once a week for 5-10 minutes.
4. Emotions experienced while gardening
• The gardeners described a variety of emotions that were experienced throughout the gardening process. There was a natural sense of calm that was felt while planting, but there was also a feeling of anticipation and worry after planting because the gardeners wanted their plants to grow successfully. Overall, gardeners also felt a great amount of affection for their plants. • The strongest emotions were felt after harvesting the plants. Gardeners explained that they felt joy from successfully harvesting their plants and overall, they felt a great sense of relief. • However, if the gardeners planted too many sprouts and were unable to use all of the produce, some vegetables would go to waste. This made the gardeners feel disappointed and regretful.
5. Advantages of a Smart Farm
• Overall, smart farms proved to be an effective method for increasing the amount of vegetables people consumed in their daily diet. Consequently, this increase in vegetable intake had many health benefits for the users and they could recovery more quickly from feelings of chronic/constant fatigue. • The smart farms were convenient, clean and easy to manage. The farms did not attract bugs or insects and there was no odor during the growing process. • Smart farms created more opportunities for families to discuss gardening and plants. • The smart farms were also decorative and had a positive effect on the interior of people's homes.
6. Inconveniences
• The plants grow too small and slowly to consistently eat them as a salad meal. • Planting a large amount to solve the problem of slow growth resulted in having to eat them hurriedly as they all grew at once. • Plants have dried out because water supply was not provided on time. • Determining the harvest time depending on visual can be ambiguous for beginners.
Interview 1&2 Insight
Smart Farm's technology and app service are the solution, because it can reduce the time spent on the cultivation hobby. By placing a smart farm in the lounge, the area is decorated with green plants. This will have the effect of increasing the efficiency of work. During conversations, employees will be able to talk about their smart farm hobbies, which will lead to stronger relationships among them.
Time
1. Many office workers find it difficult to pursue a hobby because of their busy work sechduel.
2. The manager is worried that if the smart farm hobby is operated in a company, people will spend less time working than before.
In order for users to feel attachment to their vegetables and the joy of growing them, how much the cultivation activities must be reduced that people have to do themselves?
Nature
1. When taking a break from work, many people prefer to relax by looking at nature, such as going up to the rooftop garden.
2. Vegetables and plants in smart farms help reduce stress because they provide a sense of stability.
The space where smart farms are placed should be designed open and nature-friednly to make people fully relaxed.
Is there a way to make commuting to work more enjoyable with our service?
Community
1. By having conversations during breaks at work, employees at work become more connected.
2. Companies are making efforts to create clubs in order to create a strong bond between employeers with common hobbies.
What are some ways for employees to interact more actively through vegetables?
People interested in a vegetable centered diet are more likely to be positive in growing vegetables. How about appealing to them for eating healthy diet with their own vegetables?
User Persona
“I want to regain healthy and balanced lifestyle!”
Information
Name
Eunji Kim
Age
29
Job
Start-up Marketer
Career
3 years
Housing type
One-person households
Location
Seoul, South Korea
Personality
Introvert
Extrovert
Free
Regular
Impatient
Patient
Inertial
Challenging
Biography
Eunji has been working as a marketer at a tech company for 3 years. She is tech-savvy and comfortable using digital tools in many aspects of her life, so she especially likes solutions which help her save time in her busy schedule. At work, she enjoys socializing with her colleagues during breaks in a office lounge.
When Eunji goes to work, she enjoys socializing and communicating with her colleagues during coffee breaks in a shared office lounge. The lounge has the advantage of being open and spacious, allowing multiple people to sit and talk together.
Frustration
• Fatigue
These days, Eunji has so much work that she doesn't even have time to de-stress. She is looking for a way to relieve stress, but there is no suitable way to do it with her limited time and energy.
• Diet
Determined to take care of her health, she tried to include nutritious ingredients in her meals. But lately she can't afford to cook, so she often orders fast food and has her food delivered.
• Health
The accumulated stress and frequent consumption of fast food slowed down her digestion. She wants to find a balance between her health and work.
Goals and needs
• Hobby
Eunji wants to try home farming as a new hobby, but her home is not a suitable space for a garden. Finding the right balance of water, light, and nutrients for optimal plant growth is difficult.
• Nature
She wants to forget complicated thoughts and relax while watching nature's green grass and trees. However, when she looks out the window at the office, it is filled with a forest of buildings.
• Rest
She wanted to travel and heal herself. Because she thought that finding a balance between health and work would allow her to be more productive at work than she is now.
Motivations
Saving Time
Productivity
Health
Convenience
Sociability
Story board
How workers enjoy smart farm in their office places
One afternoon after working hard, Eunji felt tired and needed a break.
So she went to the company lounge to take a break, and saw a poster in the lounge saying that they were recruiting buyers for an in-house smart farm.
Eunji installed the app and logged in with her company ID. First, a survey was conducted on her lifestyle. Based on the results, vegetables and size of farm land area were recommended.
Felt she needed a new hobby, she subscribed to the service. Then she received soil containing seeds from the store. To plant them, she went to her assigned garden.
Looking at the cultivation calendar, it says that if you plant the seeds today, they will germinate within two weeks.
After that day, when she went to work for a month, she spent her break in the lounge with coffee and looking at the plants. Eunji felt as if all her fatigue had disappeared.
Eunji was able to have more enjoyable conversations with colleagues who also enjoy the smart farm hobby. They talked about their favorite vegetables and exchanged smart farm management tips.
About a month after planting the seeds, a harvest notification sounded, indicating the need for thinning.
She got some tools from the counter and picked out the weak vegetables herself.
Finally, one day, on her way to work, she received a push notification that she could harvest. She went to work, harvested with all her excitement and recorded it in the calendar.
Harvest + Hobby
Solution
Easy and convenient in-house smart farm gardening service
The smart farm located within the company lounge offers the advantage of high access and healthy hobby for busy employees, providing opportunities them to take a rest
Service system map
Actors and components to deliver services
Branding
Core Value
Refresh
Relax and enjoy in the smart garden of the in-house lounge.
Worthy
Grow vegetables and feel the rewards of harvest.
Easy
Convenient harvesting with an App linked to smart farms.
Together
A sense of belonging with colleagues sharing the same hobby.
Graphic motif
3D vegetable assets with flat leaf shapes
13 types of 3D vegetables assets were created. The vegetables help users to feel the vitality and the worth of growing them. Also 2D leaf shapes were used as graphic component as well, which is the sketch of the 3d vegetable leaves.
How Harvy works
Seasonal system at 6-month intervals, subscription payment
1. User recruitment is held every six months and operates on a seasonal basis. 2. People who want to do it gather together to sow and observe together. 3. Harvest after 1-2 months, and vegetables can be planted again in empty land.
Cultivation kit composition
Tools
Why?
Due to the nature of smart farm cultivation and space, there is a possibility that a sufficient amount of harvest may not be possible depending on the species. In order to overcome these shortcomings, we want to set harvest as a kind of event and allow many users to enjoy harvest day together.
Vegetables
Types of vegetables
UX Strategy
Use a smart farm easily through app
Our team mapped stakeholders to define scope and target users. The map also helped us identify essential clinical perspectives from occupational therapists, physical therapists, and physicians to guide product decisions and ensure clinical relevance.
Making personalized
smart farm
A glance at my garden
and vegetables
Cultivation calendar and
notificaiton as reminders
Key Feature
1. Customized cultivation guide based on survey
After identifying the user's daily lifestyle and average vegetable consumption through a survey, the app recommends appropriate garden size and type of vegetables. This allows even beginners to easily start gardening.
2. The garden shown from a Top View
Vegetable icons from a top view help users to easily know the type and growth stage of each vegetable. By showing it intuitively, users can experience the rewards of growing vegetables step by step more vividly.
3. Smart notifications and cultivation calendar
Users receives push notifications to help ease garden management. Users would be reminded of important growing activities and harvest times.
User flow
From the moment the user opens the app to after harvesting
The experience of growing vegetables on the smart farm machine and harvesting them has been organized into 6 steps with a focus on action. And tools that help with these are classified into touch points.
Informaiton Architecture
App for easy garden management
On the garden screen, you can see the environment of your garden and the growth status of vegetables at a glance. If you want to grow new vegetables after harvesting your crops, place them in your shopping cart and purchase them. You can check the milestones of cultivation activities in the calendar, and notifications are separated into cultivation activities and points, so you do not miss essential cultivation management at the right time. The community page has a feed function that allows you to communicate with our company's crew, and a trading function that allows you to exchange your vegetables with each other.
Low Fidelity Interface
Modified wireframe
1. Home, Garden The screen separated into the home and garden is changed to a single screen centered on the garden. Originally, this service also had a function to purchase salad meals to help office workers eat healthy. However, it was stamped out to focus more on growing plants.
Therefore the home screen centered around salad recommendation is eliminated and the UX for the activity of growing vegetables in the garden is upgraded.
Title
Title
2. Onboarding Survey The survey was changed to more in-depth questionnaires about plant cultivation.
It changed from eating habits to asking about experience growing plants. In its original form, the service included making a salad with the vegetables, but this function was also reduced.
Final wireframe
What I learned
In order to focus the user on the main function, I improved the service around the function that should be emphasized
The screens which were separated into the home and garden centered just on the garden. By removing the salad meal service, which was a subordinate function, and focusing the garden to the main, the app more focused on the purpose was created.
I tried a new visual language on the visuals to make it different
It was a challenge to incorporate 3D graphics into plant services. When I did the market research, most of the main graphic languages of plant service were photos or 2D illustrations. I wanted to incorporate gamification elements to add to the fun, I tried new UI visuals that have never been seen in the plant service market, 3D graphics. As a result, I heard feedback from users that they were able to immediately understand the types of vegetables or the stages of growth on the garden screen.
Breaking point
Coordination between company culture and services is necessary. This is because when interviewed with office workers, there were especially worried opinions from managers. From the company's point of view, such welfare services should be sufficient advantages over investment. They were concerned not only the space but also that employees spend a lot of time investing in their hobby during work hours.
What if I improve it?
If I coordinate Harvy's profit structure once again, I want to expand using the salad business. At the first time, I thought about selling it because the business model was not solid, but it was bigger than gardening functions. So, I want to design a service model that includes sandwiches or salad meals in the in-house cafe so that Harvy can create a profit structure.