GreenLYFE: User Flows

October 1, 2018 / Designing Innovation, Editorial, GreenLYFE / nicole

GreenLYFE — Creating Community through Regenerative Systems

Purpose

Currently, information about sustainable food sources is spread out and there is not an “all-in-one” place to learn or communicate with like-minded individuals who are also interested in building community gardens and food forests through permaculture, aquaponics, and other methods. Besides, people are spending too much time on their phone to connect to others these days. Our second goal is building up a community to advocate people to communicate and meet face to face through these kinds of activities.

Objective

This platform is for people who are looking for sustainable solutions to add to their lifestyle, GreenLYFE will connect like-minded individuals through a community, permaculture, sustainable growing, aquaponics, and so forth. Unique Advantage: GreenLYFE would educate, connect people with different skill levels so they can work together, provide distribution of harvests (CSA) from different community gardens. GreenLYFE will be an all in one.

The main goals of this project are:

Bring people together who want to be sustainable in their food sources
Educate people about growing their own food
Build a community
Find the nearest community garden locations
Provide volunteer opportunities

Summary of Research Findings

These are some of the findings we have after conducting stakeholder interviews:

Pros of Community Gardens and Food Forests:

Connecting with neighbors in real life
Offering a place for amateurs to learn from and communicate with experienced farmers
Helping to feed low-income community members
Helping the homeless by providing food, shelter, and education to those who choose to help themselves by helping the local community
Creating an abundance of food in food deserts
Connection to the earth
Distribution of work among community members instead of one person
Sharing knowledge
Offering job opportunities
Gives you something to do

Challenges:

Physical space
Lack of knowledge
Overwhelmed with where to find information
Weather
Local ordinances and zoning
Nosy or controlling neighbors
Homeowners Association (HOA)
Lack of materials, resources, and funding
Initial investment when starting a food garden
Budget
Getting the word out through Social Media/marketing
Shortage of support/volunteers
Communication methods

App Features Wish List:

Interviewees felt the following features would benefit the app:

Database for pests and common plant conditions
Ability to input fruit trees and edible plant identification in your city
Grow charts for different zones
Information on companion plants
Ability to find a nearby garden or fellow gardeners
Ability to schedule tasks so people can coordinate garden care/maintenance
Event Notifications
Ability to message other users and plan a meetup
Educational courses about gardening, nutrition, etc
Workshop schedules
Tool and materials swap
Ask the Experts option
Competition about gardening
Online gardening socializing games
Volunteer/job opportunities

Audience

Gardeners of different experience levels
Professional nutritionists, beekeepers, farmers
People interested in starting their own garden
People interested in starting or joining a community garden
People already familiar with permaculture systems
People who want to volunteer their time in a community garden
People who want to eat healthier foods grown in their backyard

Concept Poster

User Scenarios (Context Scenarios)

Scenarios or stories about the ideal user experiences explain how the product fits into each persona’s life and environment, and how it helps them achieve their goals. You should have at least a couple scenarios for each persona.

Scenario 1 Creating a New Community Garden

Robert on phone looking for gardens in his area using GPS Locator
He doesn’t find any so he starts his own garden (START YOUR OWN button)
Robert receives MESSAGES from interested members
He creates a CHECKLIST of what they need to start (supplies, seeds, etc)
He also creates a list of TASKS for each member to complete.
CREATE AN EVENT to launch the garden.

Scenario • Robert, Creating a new Community Garden

Scenario 2 Plant Identifier

Jane receives plant from her mom.
Uses PLANT IDENTIFIER to find out what it is and how to care for it.
She uploads and share a picture of it with the other users
A user points out in a comment that her plant has spots and bugs
She uses the search function in the DISEASE AND PEST ENCYCLOPEDIAS to find proper care for the issue
Jane creates a reminder to water and feed her plant proper nutrients.

Scenario 3 Volunteering Opportunity

Sharon has a lot of free time and uses the GPS function to find local volunteer opportunities
She finds a local permaculture garden in need of volunteers
She marks herself on the app as an interested volunteer
She marks on the app that she is an expert in permaculture and available to give workshops
She receives a message from the group saying she has been accepted and sees the garden’s wishlist
She marks off supplies that she can donate to the garden