UX & Product - Case StudyAn engaging environmental platform to re-wild our gardens, hoods & cities.
Meadowy is an environmental activism platform that supports re-wilding newcomers & enthusiasts. The app provides easy guides on how to create and nurture eco-friendly green areas, as well as powerful tools to invite & educate others within your community to join the movement.
The Challenge
Lawn mowing contributes to high carbon emissions and reduced biodiversity. We identified a lack of general knowledge, awareness and support for re-wilded lawns as a crucial driver for continued lawn-mowing practices that are harmful to the environment.
Users interested in re-wilding need access to practical and clear information, tools and techniques for creating eco-friendly lawns & advocating in favour of re-wilding within their community.
The Goal
Design a platform that will improve education on facts & techniques for creating eco-friendly lawns, and empower users to become activists & advocates for re-wilding within their communities.
Project Overview
As a UX designer leading the app and responsive website design from conception to delivery, I was responsible for conducting interviews, paper and digital wire-framing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
This project was developed between April - May 2022 as part of the Google UX Certification Programme.
Research & Discovery
Parting from a competitive audit of other re-wilding support platforms I identified gaps & opportunities for improvement.
An audit of a few competitor’s products provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address with the Meadowy app
Meadowy’s primary user group includes private owners & tenants interested in sustainable and eco-friendly lawns & gardens.
I developed interview questions, which were then used to conduct user interviews.
Most interview participants reported feeling very curious and positive about re-wilding, but overwhelmed by their lack of knowledge, worried about the process & outcomes, and frustrated about not knowing how to persuade their families and communities about its benefits.
The feedback received through research made it very clear that users would be open and willing to work towards more eco-friendly lawns if they had access to an easy-to-use tool to help guide them.
2. Ideation
I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically on offering actionable tasks and easily shareable information for campaigning.
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the Meadowy app.
These designs focused on delivering personalised guidance to users to help re-wild their lawns, and empowering content to help them campaign in favour of it.
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected the user flow of searching for resources for tenant users, and sending an email to their landlord to persuade them in favour of rewilding the lawn.
One of the most significant findings during the first usability study, was that most users are quite new to re-wilding, therefore they need more information and encouragement before they can feel confident about taking any sort of action.
Some of the research insights for the first round of usability studies
Using these insights, I iterated on the digital wirframes.
I rearranged the content, offering abundant information & references about re-wilding before presenting users with actionable tasks.
I wanted to let users feel more comfortable when entering the app, to this effect I added an introduction hero, presented the educational guides first, followed by image inspiration to connect with them and make them feel confident.
I placed the resource finder and CTAs further down, re-worded confusing terminology, and used gestalt principles to give emphasis to the resource finder.
I improved the terminology, hierarchy and content to give emphasis and clarity to the main call to action (viewing the landlord email template) and let users feel more clear about what to do and expect at this point in the flow.
While creating the mockups, I focused on further improving hierarchy & content to create more clarity and ease of use.
I also added a CTA to the hero that offers more opportunities for the users to learn about re-wilding, based on previous research and insights about user needs.
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.
Accessibility Considerations
1
Clear labels for interactive elements that can be read by screen readers.
2
Initial focus of the home screen on personalised recommendations help define the primary task or action for the user.
3
Colour contrast and font type & size checked for optimal readability.
Responsive Website.
With the app designs completed, I started work on designing the responsive website.
I used the Meadowy sitemap to guide the organisational structure of each screen’s design to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience across devices.
The designs for screen size variation included mobile, tablet, and desktop. I optimised the designs to fit specific user needs of each device and screen size.
“I just loved the email template and the persuasion level slider so much, it was what I was expecting and hoping for, and it would save me so much time, make it so much easier for anyone to re-wild, and persuade others to do so too!”
— User, Usability testing round 2
Takeaways.
Impact
Users shared that they felt really excited to learn and transform their lawns. The app made it easy for them to understand what rewilding is about and feel confident in speaking to others about it.
What I learned
I learned that even though the problem I was trying to solve was a big one, diligently going through each step of the design process and aligning with specific user needs helped me come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.
Thank You.
hank you for your time reviewing my work on the Meadowy app! If you’d like to see more or would like to get in touch, you can view my full resume here, or reach out to me via email: