The challenge
As a florist I’ve experienced the pain points that come from the existing knowledge gap between designer and consumer first hand. Users do not know how to approach ordering flowers, they often express their lack of knowledge and overall apprehension about ordering flowers to retail and studio florists.
The solution
Create a mobile application, and strategies to introduce users to the application, that arms users with knowledge necessary for a smooth interaction with a florist, all the while benefiting florists via increasing consumer understanding of cost of goods and creating reasonable designer expectations.
Methods
Comparative analysis
Directed storytelling
Data synthesis
User Journey Map
Architecture Diagramming
Moodboard/style guide
Rapid prototyping
High fidelity prototyping
Interactive prototyping
Usability reviews
Touchpoint strategy mapping
Tools
Zoom
Facetime
Otter
Slack
Invision
Figma
Google docs
Caffeine
13 venti Iced Matchas
4 large Coca Cola bottles, I really am not proud of that.
Comparative analysis
I knew the opportunity space was going to be rich but I was not expecting it to be this rich. Some sites have attempted to bridge this knowledge gap via “How to order flowers” articles and, in my experience, retail shops try everyday to do the same thing via designing and redesigning their own website. No one I could find has attempted to solve this problem via an interactive experience. It’s a very exciting space, personally, because I remember brainstorming how to solve this exact problem while working as a designer/order specialist/shop manager, and now I have the UX knowledge and training necessary to do so.
Directed storytelling sessions
I really wanted the application’s backbone to be the space where the needs of consumers and designers overlap so it was imperative for me to conduct my primary research with floral designers (from retail florists to large-scale studio florists) and floral consumers (from first time floral shoppers to people who have hired a wedding florist before). My experience as a florist is also influencing the sessions, making them feel more conversational.
Note: all my interviews were conducted via phone so I captured the recordings via otter.
The pivot
The biggest challenge for this project was separating myself and my experiences from the final product. Conducting floral designer sessions first skewed my data towards what designers wanted consumers to know, rather than what consumers needed to know to have an enjoyable experience buying flowers. Initially the product was going to be an evocative storytelling mobile experience that told the journey of one singular flower, from bud to bloom, and the specific floristry labour that went into it until it was used for a client’s floral event. My user research simply did not call for this. The consumers I interviewed very much wanted to know detailed information about budget and scale, floral type and season, and the logistics behind ordering flowers for a large-scale event, anywhere from color palette to mood and financial specifications.
Data synthesis
This is when I shifted my focus towards serving the needs of my users. Interview data was synthesized into three specific kinds of floral shoppers: the grocery store shopper, the retail florist shopper, and the event floral shopper. These shopper archetypes came directly from the designer archetypes I interviewed (one retail, one retail/event hybrid, and a large scale event florist).
User journey mapping
I created a very light user journey map to figure out where in the journey the application would be introduced to the user. This also helped me develop some touchpoint strategies for the application to be introduced to the user. The grocery store user will encounter a QR code on the floral section of the store. It will encourage them to download the application and scan the code to get a breakdown of the floral selection of the week. This is where I thought about what lessons I was trying to teach the user about floristry. In this case the flowers would be split into the four floral categories designers are familiar with: Focal flowers, filler flowers, and line flowers. Each flower will have a care card that describes how to best take care of the flowers. The retail store user will encounter the application either via instagram post or via a floral shop recommending it to them. And the event shopper will be introduced to the application via a wedding planner. During my interview with a large scale floral designer she told me most of her clientele is referred to her via wedding planners. And when I spoke to a user who was just starting their floral journey with a wedding planner, they told me it was the planner who began to ask priming questions about possible wedding florals, so this strategy made perfect sense.
Prototyping:
It’s clear that I have a good idea of what I want the application to be able to do. The features sort of began to build themselves after some very robust research and generous interviews from designers and consumers.
The app will be split into 3 sections: grocery, retail, and event floral. Each section will have different functionality, all of them with the purpose of facilitating floral purchases and imbedding light floral language and knowledge to the users. All so that when a user connects with a floral designers they have a good foundation to communicate on.
Look and feel:
This is the fun part. I loved the idea of making something feel like a beautiful, pastel, digital cookbook. With tabs and recipe cards. The colors were found via moodboarding and finding different colors that worked with each other. It’s important to note that I am very interested in having the colors checked for accessibility contrast purposes. I get more into this in the future steps section of this case study. I wanted things to feel mostly flat except for some very small drop shadows. As to resemble cards laying on top of one another. The font strikes me as somewhat vintage and 70s which felt on theme.
Future steps
Run entire interface through accessibility testing to make sure colors are approved for accessibility purposes.
Applying results of usability tests
Introduce floral seasonality elements
Continue developing the
Showcase specific flowers for each area every season.
Wire service integration.
Sleep soundly through the night.
Some personal/professional takeaways
When I am this close to the subject matter, it’s best to start research with the user, rather than my peers in the space.
Simplicity in design is impactful. Just because I want it to be beautiful does not mean I need it to be complicated. This was a great test for me to value aesthetics without sacrificing functionality.
Boundaries and limitations are some of the biggest drivers for artistic creativity, I learned that doing very very low budget theatre.
Taking a break from a passion project and coming back to it with fresh eyes is a wonderful tool to feel reinvigorated in the creative process and to be able to notice what needs to be changed/fixed.
Ideas that don’t serve a particular project are not bad. They simply do not serve this project/purpose. Shelving them for when the time is right feels like the smart thing to do.
This one is for you: make sure no leaves/debris touches the vase water to ensure contamination doesn’t kill your flowers quickly!! And please change the water every couple of days.