Why a website/app won't solve the problem.

‍It is quite evident that a simple website redesign isn't going to increase the number of people knowing about the garden when the website itself is hardly known. The website itself has some significant usability issues which we will uncover in the usability test.

" How do we increase people engagement with the garden, inform them of its existence, and attract passersby's attention? "

Possible solutions

In terms of providing information and directing people to specific locations, we sketched three solutions with varying levels of interactivity.

Billboards

• Cheapest way to advertise. Visible even at distances.

• Billboard advertising has a very low conversion rate.

• Limited information can be displayed.

Interactive kiosk

• Gives users a way to find out more about the garden.

• Easily accessible and can contain many features.

• Slightly expensive, may not fit within budget.

Location updates

• Does not cost the organization anything as users will have their phones.

• Requires location services. Users may not always have it on, may feel uncomfortable being tracked.

User Survey

In order to gauge general interest in the garden, as well as to schedule faculty members for user interviews, we emailed professors of various related departments invitations to take a flash survey. 6 faculty members responded to the survey, with 4 agreeing to an interview.

User Interviews

The follow-up interviews were held either in person or through the use of the Zoom meeting app. The interview was designed to be semi-structured and featured numerous open-ended questions which helped establish an open dialog with the interviewee.

" I think the garden is a great venue to share and discuss sustainability topics. "

" I love spending time outdoors, teaching at the garden gives me a chance to get out of the classroom. "

" For me, parking is a big issue. I takes me 30 min to reach campus. The parking near the garden isn't always empty. "

" The website doesn't show me what type of events take place there, or what grows there. "

" There isn't enough infrastructure at the moment. The heat and space are worrying. "

Themes

To identify recurring ideas/thought processes, we decided to go through the interview responses a number of times. This would help us understand our future user’s expectations when they interact with the garden.

Identified themes,

Great place for gathering

Several participants mentioned this idea in one context or another. Whether the garden is used for classroom, event, or other recreational purposes, it has the potential to gather crowds.

Resources at the garden are limited

The garden is still under development, so this issue may be corrected over time. But, participants did mention an increase in classroom space, equipment, and the variety of plants grown could positively impact the garden.

Space is a concern

According to Susan Norton, the garden can hold about 20 working participants, or 40 spectators. A class may well exceed this limit.

Users likely already have an interest in sustainability

Rather than the garden getting users into sustainability, sustainability gets the users to the garden.

The key takeaways are,

• There is definitely a lot of interest in using the garden as a outdoor classroom or a place of gathering.

• The garden is an ideal location to practice sustainable horticulture and grow organic produce.

• Currently it lacks infrastructure like parking, tables, protection from heat, etc.

• The website does a poor job of reflecting the garden's vision, and is difficult to find.

• People would like to know what kind of plants grow there, events that take place. The interface is not welcoming.

Personas

From our research, we distilled that there are broadly two ways that people want to interact with the garden. Host an event where people can gather and socialize. And conduct classes outdoors so that students feel more connected to their surroundings. We personalized these groups in the form of discernible human-shaped personas.

Concept sketches

The key takeaways are,

• Users want to be able to book the space with ease.

• They would like to see past events and register for future ones.

• The kiosk should be welcoming and have relevant information available immediately.

• It should serve as a viable replacement to the website.

Due to severe time constraints and the pandemic making all classes virtual, our project ended with the design phase. Our final deliverable was a report containing the high-fidelity prototypes.

If given more time, I would have loved to,

• Discuss the installation of the kiosk with Susan. If it was financially feasible. Else the interface would have migrated to a tablet.

• Test the prototype and measure the increase in number of people attending events.

• Measure the success of the kiosk: if my idea would actually be able to increase engagement with the garden, and bring stable revenue.

Insights

• I enjoyed working on this project as it was a step apart from a traditional redesign. Working with students from other majors was a bonus, I could rely on their knowledge in areas I myself wasn't confident in.

• I just wish we didn't have to work on the design phase individually. With no one to counter my design decisions, it felt disjoint from a real client based project.
• We spent quite a lot of time on research, having weekly stand-ups in front of the class. Picking up ideas and methodologies from other groups definitely influenced the latter half of the project.