Urban Growth
An app designed to help the urban farmer make an impact, regardless of area or experience
Brief
24 hour hackathon - work together with Web Developers in a short window to find a problem (and solution) focusing on clean energy and the impact a digital solution can have.
Objective
Carbon footprint - We chose to focus on the impact an individual can have to reduce their carbon footprint and address the ever serious nature of climate change.
Focus
Urban farming - realizing that some people have little space and little experience with farming we decided to focus on a fully automated and contained system to promote farming for everyone.
We focused on just the mobile app for this product, but would be accompanied by a contained farming unit (more details below).
Persona
With such a short time frame, we built a quick persona so we can validate our hypothesis and test our path forward against a typical user.
Targeting the urban grower
We want to re-focus the design challenge to make sure we build on user needs and pain points.
How might we help people with little experience or space to feel comfortable growing their own produce so that they can have an individual impact on reducing their carbon footprint?
Branding
Values
The obvious choice was green and more green. With limited time we didn’t get too in depth with color and found the right mix of greens and neutrals for the project quickly (simple is better).
We were looking to give off a sense of clean, eco friendly, and impactful.
Prototype
With Urban Growth, the entire system is automated for each crop and the app allows for real time environmental metrics - think CO2, water usage, and overall impact. Users can now be notified of crop needs, harvest date, and happiness levels. You can also keep an eye out for new produce for your next harvest.
Get growing
Marketing website and mobile web
With the app ready for launch I want to attract users on different platforms and screens. The main function, and design agenda, is to push eco-conscious users to download the app through the site and mobile web interface.
This led to a layout that is designed to point out key features and allow the user to download with large callouts and CTA’s.
Marketing website | Mobile web
Conclusion & design impact
Key learnings and next steps
A jam packed 24 hour rush to outline a path for Urban Growth was actually incredibly fun and fulfilling. As a team we made quick decisions, stayed true to our objective, and communicated directly throughout the project. A good setup meeting helped to align everyone on how best to operate.
I’ve learned a TON throughout the process, below are some of the standout learnings :
Importance of good communication - with a tight deadline, being able to communicate well was a massive help.
Working with Developers - making sure they know the direction and what we can achieve given the parameters.
Staying focused on the problem (very easy to start thinking about solutions).
Continuing to validate your solution on the Persona. Although this was a quick Persona, we were still making sure the solution worked for her. Aligning with her motivations, behaviors, and solving for her as the core user was our north star.
With 24 hours we were kind of forced to keep color and type simple. This actually paid off in a good way and we landed on color and type kit that worked to fit our overall mood for the app.
Keeping use-case at the forefront when designing a marketing website along with the app. With 2 different uses, we want to be sure to focus on what each solution is trying to accomplish. I think we did that well.