Florist Heaven addresses the challenge of limited accessibility to a comprehensive and curated platform for florists and plant enthusiasts to discover, showcase, and procure a diverse range of floral creations and plants. Existing options lack a cohesive and user-friendly interface, hindering florists' market reach and customers' ability to explore an extensive array of botanical offerings.

Florist Heaven seeks to bridge this gap by providing a consolidated digital space that empowers florists to expand their reach and enables users to immerse themselves in the world of botanical beauty. Through intuitive navigation, a visually appealing interface, and innovative features, Florist Heaven aims to create a thriving ecosystem where florists can showcase their creations, expand their client base, and gain recognition. 

As a product designer for Florist Heaven, my role is pivotal in shaping the entire user experience of the app, from conceptualization to implementation.

User research was conducted through a comprehensive approach involving both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative interviews were held with diverse florists and plant enthusiasts to understand their needs, preferences, and pain points. Additionally, quantitative surveys gathered data on usage patterns and preferences. The synthesis of these insights provided a deep understanding of user motivations and guided the design process to ensure a user-centered app experience.

I initially held the assumption that users primarily sought to purchase a variety of plants and flowers. However, findings revealed a significant shift in user priorities. Instead of just aiming for a diverse product range, users expressed a stronger desire for comprehensive care instructions and guidance. This revelation guided my design focus towards enhancing the app's educational content and user support features, aligning with the newfound emphasis on providing valuable plant care information.

Limited Plant InformationUsers may struggle to find comprehensive plant care instructions and information about the plants they are interested in purchasing, leading to uncertainty about how to properly care for their selections.

Complex NavigationUsers could experience difficulties in navigating through the app's various sections, especially if the menu structure or labeling is unclear, resulting in frustration and a less enjoyable experience.

Checkout FrictionUsers might encounter obstacles during the checkout process, such as unclear pricing, unexpected fees, or a complicated payment process, causing them to abandon their purchase out of frustration.

Inadequate Visual RepresentationUsers may be disappointed if the images of plants and floral arrangements in the app don't accurately reflect the actual products they receive, leading to unmet expectations upon delivery.

After the initial wireframes were drawn a Low fidelity prototype was created and then tested on 5 different types of users;

Tech Wizard

Casual person in their 20s

Plant Enthusiast, who purchases plants frequently

Not technologically inclined

Casual Person in their 40s

Feedback: 4/5 Users noted that the Explore Page added no value to the app other than a search bar. "So the difference is I can search now? Doesn't seem very different from home"

Feedback: 4/5 Users did not like being redirected to the cart screen after adding an item to cart and wanted easier access to the cart screen. "I said add to cart not take me to cart".‍

Feedback: 5/5 Users expressed their dislike to the garden screen, having the remove button easily clickable as well as the general layout was too confusing and did not feel very customizable. "This is my garden right? Why can't I edit the picture of MY Garden".‍

Feedback: 4/5 Users wanted a clearer and better display of the caring instructions. "I just want to see how to water my plant, I don't want to read everything to know that one thing"‍

Part of the last section of the course was to either create a new website or make the current application responsive, I chose the latter as it reaffirms design decisions and makes the application possible to use on multiple screens.

As with everything, Dark mode is extremely popular amongst users and thanks to material design, dark mode is easier to design than before.

Develop the application, currently the prototypes only showcase basic functionality with some nice animations but given the scale of this application and my desire to learn coding, I plan on using it as an interactive way to learn coding. I also plan to update the prototype with Figma's latest Advanced Prototyping features as I am already using their new Variables system (Design Tokens).

Going through the Google UX Course was a really enjoyable experience, the way things are laid out and explained are just a joy to work through. Despite starting 3 years after I set out on my UI UX Journey I still found this course to be extremely helpful and insightful.