Basil helps with garden planning and maintenance.

I chose to pursue this project because gardening reduces climate change. I wanted to create a solution for those people who are deterred from gardening because of the significant knowledge curve required to cultivate a successful garden.

INTERVIEWS

I interviewed 4 people with interest or experience in gardening to understand the obstacles that either prevented them from gardening or kept them from achieving the success they desired in their gardens. View the interview transcripts.

PERSONAS

Elli, 44, is a suburban mom who wants a relaxing outdoor activity that her whole family can participate in. She cares about her family eating organic and staying healthy.

Mika, 32, has finally saved enough to purchase a plot of land in the country along with a tiny-house kit. Part of his committment to self-sufficiency includes developing long-term plans for his new finca.

Zara, 26, is a tech-savvy city-dweller who shares a house with a small backyard. She's always open to ideas to stretch her budget. Living a healthy and eco-friendly lifestyle are central to her identity.

*I decided to focus on Zara for V1.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Researching gardening apps showed that while many apps provide information about individual plants, there are no apps:
• mapping where plants should be positioned
• offering plant-specific troubleshooting
• syncing task lists to weather conditions and a garden plan

THE PROCESS

This diagram shows the transformation of three core screens as I moved from sketching to wireframing to prototyping.

DESIGN SOLUTIONS

These are the core tasks gardeners would visit Basil to complete. Because gardens and the goals gardeners have for them are complex and hugely diverse, they require particularly creative design solutions.

1. PLOT THE GARDEN

It is important to collect critical information about the garden whilst keeping the gardener engaged.

2. CHOOSE PLANTS

The plant list needed to remain accessible without getting in the way. People usually only need to select their plants once. But some may need to make small edits throughout the season.

I was weary to add another button in fear that another action option could confuse the gardener. Finally, I realized that the list could live below in a swipeable panel. It is right there when needed, but can stay hidden for the majority of time that it isn't.

Gardeners have a list of the plants in their garden and can easily add new plants or remove plants that they changed their minds about or that didn't take during the season. Since Basil knows ideal planting times, it could recommend adding plants that could handle sowing mid-season.

3. PLANT THE GARDEN

Gardens are more successful when the gardener takes advantage of plants that do well together. Basil pairs companions together and repels aggressive plant relationships. I arrived at the solution to join three hexagons together because these tri-hexes:

illustrate that the plants are in a group
can actually be engineered
plot elegantly

4. MAINTAIN THE GARDEN

Strategic Garden Design +
Actionable Tasks =

Garden Success

Basil needs to help gardeners stay on task, even when problems arise.

5. TROUBLESHOOT PROBLEMS

Troubleshooting in Basil follows the mental model of the gardener.

PROTOTYPE

Try out Basil for yourself.

NEXT STEPS

Basil is thusfar a concept project. However, I would be open to continuing this project if the right developers had interest in working on this.

V2 developments might include:

A share feature that shares a saved garden with friends, family, or contract helpers. This would be useful for people taking care of a garden with others or to give care instructions to a garden-sitter when traveling out of town.
An e-commerce product so that gardeners could order the recommended seeds and equipment directly from the app.
Troubleshooting articles linking to a Basil e-commerce platform or to affliates to sell organic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.