Myco
An empowering app that effortlessly guides users in planning their garden so that they can spend more time enjoying the benefits of nature and less time tethered to their phone.
Skills
Product Thinking
Research
Visual Design
Platform
Mobile App
Role
Product Designer
THE PARADOX OF GARDENING
While having therapeutic benefits, gardening can require extensive research, taking the user away from the garden itself.
Myco is reinventing the relationship between planning, learning and gardening.
Offering personalized and informative help
By creating a place to learn and plan simultaneously, Myco provides a fast-track to get users into their gardens faster.
Dig in
Get users into their gardens, to experience the sensory joys and therapeutic aspects of gardening firsthand
Unearth wisdom
Inspire users to to find valuable life lessons hidden within the earth, cultivating personal growth and profound insights
Project Goals
Cultivate expertise
Equip new gardeners with knowledge passively as they plan their garden
How might we help beginners go from using Myco to getting out into the garden?
An onboarding flow would not only serve as a way to allow the user to input and plan their garden, but also an area where Myco can fill in knowledge gaps and offer insights.
MYCO IN ACTION
The garden journey
INPUT
INPUT
ANALYSIS
LEARN & PLAN
GARDEN
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Input garden details
Share with Myco your type of garden, size & shape, what’s planted and the goals you have for the plot.
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Myco helps you along the way
Using your input, Myco analyzes the information and makes recommendations tailored to your goals and existing garden.
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Plan your garden while learning
As you plan your garden, Myco offers nuggets of knowledge and wisdom along the way to cultivate your expertise.
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Get outside into the garden
Myco’s photo chronicling feature encourages users to venture out to observe and appreciate the transformative changes unfolding within their botanical haven.
These records serve as a valuable reference and opportunity to learn, allowing users to refine their skills and make adjustments for future seasons.
RESEARCH
Gather insights
To start the design process, I conducted user research among 5 participants to assess their attitude towards gardening. Based on the interviews, I identified three commonalities.
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Most participants found gardening daunting. Rather than spend hours researching in advance, they preferred going with the flow and looking up instructions as they went.
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Participants mentioned having used or wanting to use some sort of visualization, such as time-lapse videos, to plan their garden.
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Participants cited there being an inexplicable positive effect that gardening offered to their wellbeing and to their outlook on other aspects of life.
“I didn’t do in-depth research. I just randomly picked bok choy and radish seeds as we were in a garden center. The only time I would use my phone while gardening was to look up information of a plant.”
“It's okay to not know how it's going to be. We always want to have control, but with gardening, you can't control what's going to happen next.”
“It’d be cool to take a picture of your space and then have a visual of how plants would look like in that space.”
“Doing the same task over and over lets your mind relax. You're focused on what you're doing in the present moment, as opposed to worrying about all the other stuff in your life. It engages your senses—you're feeling it through your hands, smelling it, seeing the colors, you're hearing the birds chirping. All your different senses are engaged but engaged in a very relaxed state.”
FOUNDATION
Mapping out the blueprint
The main flow of Myco is the onboarding process where users learn bite-sized pieces of knowledge as they set up their garden.
The key feature in the process and throughout the app is the ability to visualize their garden. So rather than have the user adding plants to a garden list, users can visually plant their vegetation in the plot they’ve created.
PLEASANTRIES
Elevating the experience
Rewarding visualization
To mimic the rewarding process of gardening, a virtual garden with the ability to interact and plant vegetables, fruits or flowers was integrated.
Captivate without gamifying
Introduce engaging and playful characters who motivate the user to take action without completely gamifying the experience, as the point is to reduce time spent on the phone.
Unearthing wisdom from the garden
As users use the app and encounter different gardening experiences, Myco introduces daily affirmations, inspirational quotes, and words of wisdom. These are centered around nature and growth, emphasizing the wisdom of nature and its relevance to personal development and profound insights.
LOOK & FEEL
Visual identity evolution
I centered the branding around plants, ultimately deciding on roots and leaves with a green, black and brown palette.
Interface evolution: Garden Size/Shape input
Interface evolution: Vegetation to plant into the garden plot
Introduction to Myco
Myco acquaints users with its underlying concept and its purpose in assisting gardeners.
Learn while onboarding
The onboarding walks the user through a garden plot set up—asking the user their garden type, depth, and size/shape.
Location based
Knowing a user's location helps Myco make localized plant recommendations, and give seasonally relevant advice on the timing of garden tasks. This is also a moment of learning for the user.
Add plants to My Gardens
Myco presents plants that are climate appropriate for the garden. Users can search or click through find their specific plant in mind.
Myco asks what stage the plant is at before it is added to the My Gardens dashboard.
Plant the plants
The user can choose where in their garden plot the plant should be placed.
Let Myco do some heavy lifting
Leveraging the user's previously provided input of their location and current garden flora, along with their gardening goals, Myco employs an intelligent analysis process.
Plant recommendations
This results in personalized plant recommendations eliminating the need for users to research and organize their findings. It also serves as a moment for the user to learn about Companion Planting.
Once all plants have been planted, the user can confirm if their garden is complete, signaling the end of the onboarding process.
Garden Centre
In the Garden Centre, users can continue to add to their garden, with the help of Myco. Additionally, it functions as a comprehensive archive, documenting the growth of plants and the specific locations of where they were planted.
Play with the prototype!
Future considerations
With the core functionality of Myco firmly established, the opportunities for scaling are broad and promising.
Marketplace integration: Partnering with seed, plant and gardening businesses would enhance the convenience value of Myco for users and simultaneously open new revenue streams for Myco.
Feature Expansion: Developing new features or services that complement the existing offerings of Myco can attract a broader user base and provide more value to existing users.
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