A calm, intuitive mobile experience featuring:

Camera-based plant identification

Smart reminders based on plant needs

Daily task dashboard

Simple care tips and “Ask a Botanist” guidance

Clear task completion feedback

The design focused on habit-building, clarity, and reducing cognitive load.

🌿 UX Process

Understanding the Problem

Before the design process was initiated, it was necessary to determine whether forgetting was actually the root problem.

The following research activities were conducted:

• 20+ screener surveys were conducted to understand the user base and identify behavioural patterns.

• 6 semi-structured user interviews were conducted, each lasting 30–45 minutes, with a focus on daily routines rather than plant care specifically.

The research revealed that reminders alone were not solving the problem.

Users weren't only forgetting. They were also struggling to know what to do, understand what was wrong, and maintain the habit over time.

Four design opportunities were identified:

• Forgetfulness

  Care tasks were easy to overlook within users' everyday routines.

  Opportunity: Make important care actions timely, visible, and difficult to miss.

  
  

• Lack of Knowledge

  Users could receive a reminder without knowing exactly what action was required.

  Opportunity: Turn plant-care knowledge into simple, contextual guidance.

  
  

• Diagnosis

  Users could notice unhealthy plants without knowing the cause or appropriate next step.

  Opportunity: Make plant identification and health diagnosis accessible to non-experts.

  
  

• Continuity

  Completing one task did not necessarily create a long-term care habit.

  Opportunity: Give users a reason to return, track progress, and maintain plant health.

From Reminder App to Care Companion

These opportunities reframed the product experience around a continuous care loop:

Remember → Understand → Diagnose → Act → Continue

This became the foundation for the information architecture, user flows, and interaction design.

Design Principles

• One Clear Action

  Show users what to do next without overwhelming them with information.

  
  

• Confidence Before Commitment

  Provide identification and guidance before asking users to act.

  
  

• Progress Over Reminders

  Make plant health and progress visible to encourage continued care.

  
  

Information Architecture

The information architecture was designed around the way users approached plant care rather than around a botanical knowledge structure. Two competing models were explored:

Knowledge-first

Encyclopedia → Species → Care Guide → Reminder

This reflected the structure commonly found in existing plant-care applications.

Action-first

Today's Tasks → My Plants → Diagnose → Reminders

Research indicated that users, particularly newer plant owners, were more interested in completing an immediate task than browsing extensive information.

The action-first model was therefore selected.

Core navigation

Home
Today's care actions and upcoming tasks

My Plants
Plants, health status, and care information

Diagnose
Plant identification and health checks

Reminders
Care schedules and notifications

The Home screen was therefore designed around what needs to be done today, rather than everything the application could offer.

User Flow
I designed key flows to make critical actions fast and intuitive.

Primary Flow
Identify plant → Understand care → Set reminder → Maintain routine

Goal
Reduce steps and help users take action quickly.

User Task - Use plantlife app to identify plant and gain information about it.

Wireframes → UI Evolution

Figma AI was used to accelerate the wireframing process across four key flows.

AI-generated layouts were treated as initial scaffolding rather than final design solutions. Structural decisions continued to be evaluated through user needs, design principles, and usability considerations.

Three major issues were identified during the first wireframe iteration:

• Reminder setup was buried two levels deep.

• Plant identification required a plant profile to be created first.

• The Home screen displayed all plants instead of prioritizing today's actions.

The flow was subsequently reorganized before the high-fidelity design stage.

Initial Iteration Shown Below.

Final Design Solution

The final design focuses on simplicity, clarity, and habit formation.

Key Features

• Plant identification via camera
• Personalized care reminders
• Plant health diagnosis
• Guided plant care insights

Testing & Iteration
Usability testing helped identify friction points and improve the experience.

Improvements

• Simplified reminder setup
• Improved navigation clarity
• Reduced steps in key flows

Outcome & Impact
The final solution helps users build consistent plant care habits through simple and guided interactions.

Impact

The final experience was built around the four barriers identified during research:

Forgetfulness → Reminders
Lack of knowledge → Contextual guidance
Diagnosis → Identification & health checks
Continuity → Health & ongoing care

AI as a Design Accelerator

AI was used selectively to accelerate low-judgment tasks while keeping design decisions human-led.

• Research synthesis

  Claude and ChatGPT were used to organise and cluster interview notes after the six interviews. The synthesis process was reduced from an estimated half-day to approximately 90 minutes, creating more time for interpreting patterns and validating insights.

  
  

• UX writing

  AI was also used to review onboarding, empty-state, and error copy against the established design principles.

  
  

• Principle

  AI was used to accelerate the process—not replace design judgment.

  
  

What I'd Improve Next

• Build stronger accountability

  Research indicated that users with plant-owning friends showed more consistent behaviour. A future version could explore plant sharing, accountability partners, or lightweight social interactions.

  
  

• Test true beginners earlier

  Most participants already owned plants. A dedicated beginner cohort could reveal additional barriers around confidence, diagnosis, and initial setup.

  
  

• Instrument behaviour earlier

  Event-level analytics could be defined during the design phase to measure reminder engagement, task completion, diagnosis usage, and long-term retention.

  
  

Key Learning

The biggest design decision was not a UI change—it was reframing the problem.

PlantLife demonstrated that solving a behavioral problem requires understanding every barrier between intention and action.

Remember → Understand → Diagnose → Act → Continue