Hana

problem

Lack of floral literacy is common, and there exists a "barrier" to creating your own floral bouquet.

Flowers have always piqued my curiosity.

I adore customizing small bouquets for my apartment monthly, using different flowers each time. One day, while admiring the most recent addition, my roommates admitted that it was so cool how I knew which flowers to choose because they had absolute zero idea how to do it themselves and were afraid to. Besides roses, tulips, and sunflowers, they couldn't identify any other flower.

This sparked the question: despite floral bouquets being so commonplace in society, why is there a mental block to creating one's own bouquet? Why is there low floral literacy when we see flowers everywhere -- in movies, homes, paintings, clothing, and etc.?

project space

Scoping the project within stakeholder needs

I knew the topic I wanted to approach, but purchasing flowers involves more than just the buyer: I had to consider other stakeholders potentially involved in the process. So after listing the different stakeholders and their respective goals, I defined the ideal project space.

Survey & user interviews

Interviewees are interested in customizing their own bouquet, but are afraid to "ruin it."

“I don’t know all names of every flower and plant to ensure the bouquet looks nice in context if I try to customize online. But it’s not as convenient and quick if I try doing it myself in person just because I wouldn’t know where to even start.”

-- anonymous

To understand people's relationship with flowers, I surveyed 30 individuals within their twenties and early-thirties because traditionally, this demographic learns how to be independent, lacks strong financial stability, and has weak floral literacy.

From the survey, I noticed three patterns:

Most purchase flowers from local supermarkets because it’s the most convenient and cheapest option.
‍They buy flowers primarily for special occasions like birthdays, graduations, or Mother’s Day.
People are afraid of “ruining the bouquet” and feel overwhelmed because they do not know where to start.

I then conducted 10 interviews through Zoom to find the reasoning behind these trends on why people preferred pre-made bouquets at supermarkets even though they were to be gifts for special occasions. I asked each person questions (examples below) and organized their responses through affinity mapping.

Interview Question Examples:

For what occasion do you usually buy flowers for?
What difficulties did you run into or what did you not like while buying flowers?
Do you customize your bouquet, or do you pick a pre-designed standard bouquet?

the main insight

It's terrifying to customize when you don't even know where and what to start with.

Based on trends, I've noticed how many people mentioned facing a mental block because of something they didn't know: flower names, what colors complement each other, what design they want, the cost, and etc. Because they faced an overwhelming number of unknowns, they felt discouraged to try customizing their own bouquets and settled for pre-made ones at the supermarket.

What the interviewees want is to quickly and easily compare the flowers they're combining and create a special and meaningful bouquet that’s within an affordable price range.

This desire introduced the primary opportunity area: how can I display digestible information about flowers to help lay the groundwork for customization while also being transparent about costs?

personas & journey map

Visualizing users' expectations, concerns, and motivations

Based on my research findings and insights, I constructed two personas to keep in mind as I began to think of possible design solutions. During the interviews, I asked each person to walk me through their process of buying a bouquet for someone. While the process differs person by person, I created a general journey following their steps and throughts based off of similar highs and lows they've faced.

ideations & design

Creating low-fis and wireframe flows

Initially, I had the app to connect to local florists in the area, but quickly excluded this option because I realized it distracted me from the app’s main goal: to provide an easy floral arrangement customization. I referenced back to my insights that users are looking for a convenient and non-intimidating method to customizing bouquets which a simple mobile app can deliver. Once I finalized on the mobile app design requirements, I created low-fi wireframes and a wireframe flow to utilize for user testing.

final solution

A mobile app that aids users on how to build their own bouquet while teaching floral literacy along the way

Flowers have always piqued my curiosity. And now, for those also wanting to learn more about flowers or build their own bouquet, Hana is the first step they can take.

From viewing trending flowers to reading about what Gerberas symbolize to creating bouquets from a template or scratch, users are able to freely experiment with flowers and finally build their own bouquet without feeling lost.

concluding thoughts

Lessons I've learned

Hana is actually the first UX project I worked on after switching from industrial design 🎉 While it's not the perfect project, it certainly challenged me to push myself as a designer and learn how to adapt design thinking from industrial design to user experience.

🌻

What went well

User testing to iterate designs. While having a strong user research to start my ideations off is important, it was equally crucial to continue maintain a user-centric approach despite tight time constraints and utilize feedback to iterate my designs.

🥀

What I wished went better

Prototyping the interactions. In the finally design, users are able to drag flower icons into the bouquet rather than having to tap on a flower to add it. However, due to time constraints, I wanted to focus more on user testing and feedback to revise my designs rather than spend time prototyping.

🌱

Future improvements

Incorporating image recognition technology. Towards the end of the project, I was inspired by current trending technology. To encourage floral literacy, what if I use image recognition to allow users to take pictures of flowers they see and have the app be able to identify them?

a diy app that provides guidance on how to arrange the perfect sentimental bouquet and encourages floral literacy