Kristen Sampson
Visual/Graphic Designer
Design Bloom
UX CASE STUDY / UX DESIGN
DATE:
May 2021 to January 2022
ROLE:
UX Design + Visual Design / UX Research / Brand Design
Overview
After working in the floral industry for two years, I noticed a reoccurring problem; there is no way to show customers a "preview" of a floral arrangement before they fully commit to purchasing the flowers.
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So, I came up with the app "Design Bloom", a floral design app that allows users to build digital floral arrangements. The app features the ability to easily change flowers, colors, and allows users to preview their design in any environment using photos from their library.
Challenges
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The market for floral bouquet-building apps like this was surprisingly small, with only 2 other apps on the market, so I did not have a lot of established research to pull ideas from and I had to rely on my experience as a floral designer, and the user feedback that I received from survey participants.
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Figma did not have a way to mock-up all of the features that I had in mind for this app at the time it was designed; for example, in the full app, users would be able to turn and rotate the floral arrangement with their fingers on a mobile device - this was not possible to mock up at the current time with Figma.
Digital Wireframes & Early Concepts
I started my designs with sketches and wireframes and made some early changes based off of feedback from user testing.
Before - Log in process lengthy and confusing for users.
After - Revised log in process after testing with users
Pain Points & Solutions
Through my research, one thing became really apparent to me; florists and their customers were often not on the same page about how the design should look.
Solution - Bouquet Preview Function
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The user can easily preview their bouquet design with a photo from their library, eliminating the need to use their imagination to determine how a bouquet will look with a wedding dress, or in a specific setting.
Customers often want to see what the
bouquet will look like in different colors.
Solution - Changing Flower Colors
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Users can easily change the color of a flower with just a few taps, making color previewing easy. Users can even create multiple versions of the same design in different colors and save each version to their library.
Mood Board
I put together a mood board to serve as inspiration for the colors, fonts, and overall look and feel of the app.
Style Guide & Branding
I illustrated all icons myself to achieve the look that I envisioned for the app.
The Final Design
The app features many different designs to try out such as wedding designs, funeral arrangements, and vase arrangements. There are explanations and photos for each design style, as well as a tips page on the home page of the app.
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Working within Figma's limitations, I created Gray circles to serve as a placeholders so the user was not working with a totally blank screen.
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Takeaways
As a former floral designer, this project was both a passion of mine, and the app that I wish I had when I was working in the industry. I learned that even if I have a lot of first hand knowledge of what floral designers may need in an app like this, not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Gaining outside opinions and talking with real users in order to understand and empathize with them is invaluable and essential to designing a good product.