ABOUT THE PROJECT
Finding the right plant for your lifestyle 🌵
CONTEXT
As there is a new saying, "Plants are the new pets, pets are the new kids," more and more people have been getting into the houseplant hobby, especially amid the pandemic. I, myself, am a plant mom, although not quite the gardener but uniquely compulsive at adopting new green friends. "Are others like me? "I started this passion project out of curiosity and interest to empathize with other plant lovers' experiences in shopping and caring for houseplants.
This is my story of re-designing the online plant shopping experience for my favorite local plant shop, Terravita.
Role
UX Designer
I worked solo on this project, covered from research, design, and delivering final mock-ups
client
terravita
Duration
2 weeks
May - June 2022
achievement
High user satisfaction & increased usability score
I received positive feedback from the users, they found the newly designed website very easy to navigate and found just the right assured information to choose their plants.
I found the website easy to navigate
strongly agree
strongly agree
I feel assured about plant shipping process
strongly agree
strongly agree
Users are saying…
"I loved the labels on the plants. It was easy to digest and saved a few clicks. Details & care was easy and just enough information"
-Bryan
"I found the filters and labels very helpful. Great information but not overwhelming!"
-Lucy
"I liked the delivery info section, it seemed promising that my plants will arrive in good condition"
-Anne
"I felt assured about seeing shipping info on the homepage"
-Hannah
discover
Challenges on finding the right plant & concerns around plant delivery
I first started drafting questionnaire to get quantifiable data to understand general perspective and behaviors of people engaging in plant shopping & caring. Questionnaire result also helped me construct more directive questions for the user interviews and screening potential users for testing.
Questionnare
14 participants
71.4%
Participants look for low maintenance plants when shopping for new plants
43%
Participants have concerns about plant conditions during the transit / shipping
User Interviews
5 participants
4
users
want to know the maintenance level of the plants & the care requirements to take care of the plants more responsibly
4
users
Users are concerned about the plant condition during transit / shipping
What did we find out?
"I look for plants that fit my lifestyle"
When shopping for plants, users want to know more about care guides to find plants that will fit their lifestyle and house environment and take good care of plants.
"I'm worried about plant condition going through transit"
The main concern on online plant shopping for users is going through transit / shipping. Users are worried about plants not getting enough sun and water and handling packages that could damage the plants. Therefore, users wished to see other people’s experiences to validate the store’s credibility.
PERSONA
Meet Zoe, plant lover but not a green thumb
legacy web testing
Outdated website with poor user experience
Usability test insight - legacy website
Along with user interviews, I conducted usability tests on the original Terravita website to test the usability and heuristic analysis.
Confusing global menu
The primary goal of the users is to plan a trip on the website. But ‘Plan Your Visit’ wasn’t on the top hierarchy on the website
Limited user control & freedom
Very Basic e-commerce elements such as Cart / Search / Profile were missing and could not be accessed from the site.
Too little information on PDP
User wished to see more information on the plant care and descriptions in the product detail page.
No "Add to Cart" button
On the product detail page, "add to cart" button wasn't available, only "purchase" button, which led straight to check-out flow. This confused users and frustrated users who wished to browse further.
How can we help Zoe to find plants that will fit her lifestyle and ensure that plants will be delivered fresh to the doorstep?
Competitor analysis
Looking at competitors
To get gauge how other plant e-commerce sites are addressing the user challenges and compare, I did heuristic analyses on 4 different competitors.
Harvey balls ranking
I used Harvey Balls to evaluate each competitor, and the following shows analyses on 2 main features.
Product Categories : To look at how competitors are categorizing plants, which will impact how users browse and shop for plants
Shipping & Handling : The main concerns users have for plant online shopping is shipping & handling of the plants. How we communicate to users on shipping expectations will influence their purchasing
Product Categories
Most competitors except Steve’s Leaves were categorizing plants by care level and required environment. Details vary, but The Sill and Bloomscape were communicating the best on plant types by care levels plus the benefits of the plant
Shipping & Handling of plants
All of the competitors were communicating shipping & handling in detail. Where it varied was the services they provide and where users could access it. The best in classes were The Sill and Bloomscape, using iconography and providing access links on PDP to a more detailed page
Terravita was falling behind compared to competitors in most aspects. But that meant more room for improvement and new ideas. Let's move on to the next step I took to help users and Terravita.
Competitor analysis
Restructuring website architecture
As we learned that Terravita’s global menu was inconsistent and confusing to users, I first looked at information architecture to re-frame the website structure. Learnings from research, competitor analyses, and card sorting, I rebuilt the frameworks before layering on design ideas.
Legacy Information Architecture
The overall structure of the website lacks consistency in categorization and granularity. Menu names are unclear to users and lead to pages with unexpected content
Updated Information Architecture
Global menus are condensed into a more prominent theme, and I created more sub-categories to organize the website. And plant menus are broken down into subdivisions to improve the browsing experience by care level and its required environment rather than plant types
05
Design
Sketching & Wireflows
Through an iterative sketching process, I explored different layouts and ideas on how to effectively help users browse plants, learn about their care tips, and access shipping information.
Sketches showing different layout options
Wireflow showing Zoe browsing for plants using filters and learning about plants from details & care guide
Wire flow showing Zoe going through check-out flow
test & iterate
Successful testing with valuable feedback
Tested with 5 users with high task success rate
Tasks
Browse & purchase easy care & pet friendly plants
Find out about how plants will be delivered
100%
Task success rate
Test result was a high success with positive feedback from users but I've also received valuable feedback how I could improve the experience further for users. Let's take a look at some of those learnings!
Cart layout
Thought the cart page needed adjustment on the layout between "Your Cart" & "You might want these." Users wanted to focus more on the cart details. To make it clearer for users I've adjusted the proportion to give more focus on the cart.
BEFORE
AFTER
Plant details & care visibility
On Product Detail Page, I've designed Detail & Care section to appear when users click the drop-down button. However this requires extra click, and users wanted to view the details & care as a default when they go through plant details.
BEFORE
AFTER
visual design
Re-branding Terravita
Inviting and friendly
Besides the logo, the original Terravita website uses a black-and-white theme. It looks clean and minimal and doesn’t have much personality. In this makeover, I wanted to express the brand’s character as an inviting and friendly small family-owned plant shop.
solution
Enhancing the plant shopping experience and ensuring reliable plant delivery
Finding plants that fit your lifestyle
When shopping for plants, majority of our users looked for low-maintenance plants that aligned with their lifestyles. To assist users in finding the perfect plant match, I created filters with various options, plant labels on the product listing page, and plant care guide on the product detail page for plant carers to best maintain their plant buddies.
Access to detailed shipping information
A primary worry for online plant shoppers is the delivery process and the condition of the plant upon arrival. To address these concerns and shed light on the store's delivery procedures and policies, I designed a Shipping Info Page which provides users with comprehensive details about delivery. Furthermore, I added a summary and quick link to this information on the product detail page.
learning
What did I learn?
I’ve received positive feedback from users that the site was easy to navigate with just the right amount of information. Re-designing for Terravita was an enjoyable and meaningful experience and an opportunity to connect and empathize with other plant lovers. Plus, I've got to learn more about different plants!
Thank you for reading through my journey of Terravita makeover!
Thank you for taking the time to read!