A custom Alexa skill that assists the houseplant owner to deliver the right plant care to the right plant at the right time.
Problem
House plant owners don’t always know or remember what kind of plant care to deliver for each of their indoor plants, leading to unhealthy / dying plants and a loss of confidence in their ability to care for a plant. Various apps and websites are available to assist, however interacting with a laptop or mobile phone while handling soil and water can be risky to your expensive technology.
Role: Voice & conversation design, user research, usability testing and analysis, video prototype, visual design, storyboarding.
Individual project
What: Custom Skill for Alexa
Tools: Illustrator, Sheets, Premiere Pro, After Effects
Duration: 7 weeks
My Process
Target Audience
House plant owners with at least one indoor plant and an Alexa enabled home device.
Research
Method 1: Survey
38 participants
92% - Highly value having house plants in their home.
All participants report needing help with plant care requirements. The 3 topics: when to fertilize, watering questions and sunlight requirements
Only 8% report using some form of technology as a reminder for plant care.
40% take care of plants only if they look bad or if they remember
Method 2: Comparative Analysis
Method 3: Literature Review
With the Covid-19 quarantine and the nationwide work from home orders as well as current interior design trends interior plants are extremely popular and selling like hotcakes. The literature points to a need for plant care assistance as indoor gardens gain popularity.
Key Research Findings
Houseplants are in high demand in the current market
Most people who own indoor plants value them as part of their home environment.
People want to know how to take better care of their plants.
Technology is under utilized in scheduling plant care.
Currently there is not an Alexa skill that provides plant care advice and schedules the advised care.
Features
Prototype
Use cases - The Happy Paths
Plant care advice:
User wants specific care advice for a specific plant
Diagnosis and Treatment:
User wants to diagnosis a sick plant and receive treatment advice
Scheduling plant care:
User wants to scheduled advised plant care or treatment advice
Testing
Wizard of Oz testing
Iterations
Case added for when User unsure of specific plant name, but plant type or plant family is known, i.e. succulent, cactus, philodendron, etc.
Case added when user wants to know about multiple types of plant care
Sample dialogs - Happy Path
Testing
Table Reads and Wizard of Oz testing
Iterations
Pronunciation of a plant’s latin name is not always understood. Recovery path added to allow user to spell the Latin name or provide plant’s common name.
Prompts were shortened. Initially, prompt offered user multiple types of plant care, now using the principle of progressive disclosure, options are given as needed.
Flow diagram
Testing
Wizard of Oz testing
Iterations
Scheduling was initially left up to the user to do outside of the skill, however it made sense to schedule within the skill, in order to reduce cognitive burden to remember the frequency of advised plant care. The Skill will Schedule plant care into a digital calendar, accessible to the Alexa app.
Diagnosis fits into plant care advice flow. The burden is on the system to hear and understand a symptom as a need for plant care.
Error and recovery paths added for scheduling outside of recommended care parameters, plant care and plant name unlisted in databases, mispronunciation, unspecified needs, unspecified plant type, system misunderstanding, user misunderstanding, unexpected intent.
Reflection
The future possibilities for The Plant Whisperer could include integration with home thermostats as well as moisture sensors devices placed within the soil of a houseplant. Direct environmental feedback about temperature and moisture levels could assist users to adjust plant care routines in order to optimize indoor plant health.
This was a group sized project, done by an individual due to COVID-19 quarantine. I would have enjoyed more opportunity to explore the scheduling aspects of the flow. There is definitely more to do here that has been left unspecified.
I would love to further develop this skill in association with an already established botanical database.