UX take-home challenge

Solving a lawn watering problem.

My mentor gave me a take-home challenge to flex my problem-solving muscle. This is a great practice and a learning experience. The challenge goes like this: I don’t know how much water my lawn needs. What if I am away and I can’t know how and when it must be watered? There is no technological constraints for the solution. Great!

I began this project by answering some of the important questions to frame my process.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

What problem does it solve? How does it impact the world? How does it benefit the costumers? What business opportunities does it create?

1. This product is important because it helps people who don’t know how to take care of their grass, or are away from the garden to maintain it.
2. It can solve two problems:

a. help people maintain their lawn/garden at a distance

b. help people who don’t know how to or can’t manage to keep the lawn healthy

3. This product can help make this world a more green place, with more plants and fresher air

4. It helps customers to enjoy the beauty of their lawn/ garden; benefits from relaxing and cooling property of plants; it helps clean the air; allows users to avoid extra labor; and creates more free time.

5. This product also creates a few business opportunities:

a. keeps customers from switching to competitors,

b. sign up for more advanced/automated services at extra charge,

c. use complementing products from the same brand.

WHO IS THE AUDIENCE?

What are the subcategories in each group?

1. Homeowners with lawn/garden/backyard (has a lawn/garden for leisure):

a. Working professional who is a homeowner 25–50 y.o.

b. Child of a homeowner 15–25 y.o.

c. Senior 50–80 y.o.

2. Farmers (grow produce for food and sale)

3. Public parks and recreation management (maintain public spaces)

4. Landscape architects (create unique gardens and landscapes for clients)

For the scope of this project, I am focusing on the first group

WHEN AND WHERE?

I wanted to explore the physical surroundings of a person using this product. Is there a trigger causing the need to use the product? How much time does user have? Does the user use a specific app or platform? What emotions does the user experience during this process? What is the user’s high-level motivation to solve this problem? How can any user achieve it?

1. Users will use this product:

a. At home, from control panel

b. From their phone to check the status and track data when on vacation or a business trip away from home

2. A trigger to cause the need to use this product can be:

a. Seeing own lawn in poor condition

b. Notification pop up to remind to water the lawn

c. Seeing some other lawn/garden in a healthier, greener condition

3. The user approximately has 20 minutes using the phone and 1–3 hours using the control panel at home.

4. The emotions user experiences are curiosity, confusion, frustration, satisfaction

5. High-level motivation is to solve the lawn watering problem is to enjoy the view, the feel, and the fresh air

I brainstormed based on these answers and came up with such 3 ideas.

IDEAS:

1. Technology that user inserts in the ground in a few places (depending on the amount of shade). This soil stick would measure the amount of soil moisture. When the level of moisture drops below a certain level the soil stick sends a signal to the control panel to water the lawn.
2. The control panel/phone app has a brief questionnaire about the environmental conditions, types of plants, season, level of involvement, and knowledge from the user. Watering will be set up automatically on a schedule. Users can control the whole process from the phone.
3. A special high-resolution camera can detect the color of the grass and water whenever the color fades or turns yellow. It can be controlled through a phone app.
4. Ask a neighbor of a friend to water the lawn in your absence :)

I have sketched out all three ideas but below is the most successful one, based on the Impact vs Effort matrix. This matrix is a great tool to quickly grasp which direction is justified the most.

IDEA # 1

Advanced technology in the form of a stick that user inserts in the ground in a few places (depending on the area size). This soil control stick would measure the amount of soil moisture and quality of soil. When the level of moisture drops below a certain level the soil stick sends a signal to the control panel to water the lawn.

First I wanted to layout all steps the user must take to successfully reach the goal. Which in this case find out when to water the lawn and have an option to do it from distance. To do this I mapped out a simple costumer journey.

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COSTUMER’S JOURNEY:

1. Buy watering system and soil control stick
2. Have it installed and set up (should the installation be required and included in the price?)
3. Use the control panel to see the current state, updates, and for manual changes
4. Download the app to see the current state, updates, and for control
5. Create an account and connect to a watering system
6. Check current soil moisture and nutrient levels
7. Get notifications before each watering
8. If needed request additional watering or postpone one
9. Get suggestions for soil nutrient enrichment that user can buy through the app (optional bonus feature)

TASKS NEEDED TO COMPLETE:

1. Choose a type of watering system and purchase it
2. Learn how to use the control panel
3. How to turn the watering process manually
4. How to see if there is any malfunction or any part needs to change
5. How to turn on/off and restart the system
6. How to see the current status of the soil
7. Download the app
8. Create account
9. Go through quick tutorial and tips on how to use the program
10. Select the type of plant (grass vs tree vs flower vs vegetable)
11. Check the main dashboard with current soil condition
12. Get a notification that the soil has reached a critical level of dryness and that watering is scheduled
13. Cancel watering if needed
14. Keep checking the dashboard for soil status updates and maintenance suggestions, such as adding nutrients.

I then started sketching out a control panel that a user can check when at home.

CONTROL PANEL FEATURES:

1. Turn on/off button and restart button
2. Level of moisture update
3. Nutrient content info
4. Manual watering button
5. See the watering history (is this needed? This info can be accessed online or through the phone app)
6. Indicator of malfunction of the soil stick and request to change it, soil stick change (is it “eternal” or more like a filter?) or discrepancy of signal.

I started sketching out different feature elements. For each feature, I tried a few different ways to visually communicate their function and state. Suh as soil moisture level, nutrient levels, on/off/reset/water now/cancel watering buttons. I was guided by a simplicity that would suit a teenager or a senior. I sketched two control panels. One version with buttons and simple light indicators only; another one with a touchscreen. But I decided to move forward with the touchscreen one.

Some elements seemed more successful in clarity and functionality. Like light beam to indicate malfunction.

Or progress bar indicating a change of moisture in the soil.

Other elements had constraints or seemed more complicated, like circle communicating different levels of nutrients, or graph to show watering history.

As a result, I got a simple control panel. The amount of decisions and interactions is minimal, as this system is completely automated.

A user can turn the system ON or OFF, RESET it; choose to WATER NOW manually; check the moisture level; postpone the watering by pressing CANCEL; get notified that something is wrong (red light indicator) and needs repair or changing parts; soil stick needs to be changed.

Control panel with touch screen will have all the above functionality and also have additional information such as watering history. I thought about adding features with nutrients levels, but since it’s not the main goal and would require more complicated graphics, I decided to not add it to this simple control panel.

The next step was to design a simple phone app, that would allow us to control the system from anywhere, to get more information on plant health and maintenance tips.

PHONE APP FEATURES:

1. Create account
2. Sign in
3. Connect to a specific water system and soil stick
4. Soil moisture level indicator
5. Soil nutrients indicator
6. Notification that watering will be tomorrow, that watering have been completed, that soil stick needs change, that system is malfunctioning and needs reset or repair
7. Tips and information on plants growth and maintenance
8. Suggested products and services from the same brand
9. History of watering for the past 3 months with an option to input data about the health of plants.
10. Cancel watering
11. Water now

A user can check the moisture level; soil nutrients level; see NEXT WATERING scheduled; check WATERING HISTORY; WATER NOW; postpone the watering by pressing CANCEL; get notified that something is wrong with specific information about the reason and next steps; the app also provides a lot of useful information, tips, and customizable settings.

After finishing all the sketches and making few changes I started moving these ideas to SKETCH. I designed a control panel and app interface for the main tasks (see info, water now, cancel) and past basic steps (set up, create an account, connect the system). These are designs for the control panel.

First to second to third image show progression from soil moisture level to dryer. Status and next watering are updated daily. Two circles are indicators that either soil stick needs change or the system must be reset or repaired. When they light up the error message would include steps to fix the problem.

If a user decides to water manually, there is a WATER NOW button available. Watering will continue until the moisture level reaches the desired level. Alternatively, a user may want to cancel the watering, but such cancelation works for a 24 hour period.

The app interface is simple and fits all main interactions into one screen. I made some changes from the hand sketches. Such as watering history is presented as a calendar; the date is automatically updated; I added the status feature that updates daily.

If a user clicks water now button he/she may see how the status has changed and the indicator of moisture is changing as well. The watering will continue until level 16 (a level that by this current technology is considered as optimal). Before a watering is about to begin a user gets notified about it. Under notifications, the user can customize what he/she wants to be notified of.

When moisture level reaches 1 system sends a notification to a user's phone app and control panel that watering start in n amount of hours. If the user wants to cancel for any reason he/she can press cancel the watering button and the system will postpone for 24 hours after the cancelation.

This is it for this problem. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.