My Role
UX/UI Lead
I acted as lead designer on this project, from defining the vision to delivering the final prototype. My specific contributions included:
Building user personas and interpreting interview findings to target user needs and friction points.
Mapping user journeys and restructuring navigation so users can easily access critical tools (notifications, harvest calendar, tasks).
Creating low-fidelity wireframes (in Miro) and progressing into high-fidelity interactive prototypes (in Figma) for core flows such as daily tasks, reminders, and device management.
Designing the UI: choosing layout, typography, color scheme (calming greens and neutrals), and visual styling to ensure a clean, welcoming, and intuitive experience.
Running iteration cycles: incorporating feedback, refining flows, visuals, and micro-interactions to increase usability and emotional connection.
What is Tower Garden?
Tower Garden, founded in 2012 and now a subsidiary of The Juice Plus+ Company, creates aeroponic vertical gardening systems that allow people to grow fresh produce indoors or outdoors without soil. The company serves homes, schools, restaurants, and farms with space-efficient, water-saving systems.
The problem
Users of Tower Garden find it difficult and complicated to care for their hydroponic devices.
The solution: Tower Garden App
A collaborative effort for a class project to design an app for Tower Garden, aimed at making the growing process simpler and more accessible. Our goal was to give users full control of their Tower Garden through a seamless, intuitive, and user-friendly experience.
Tower Garden App Mock-ups
Impact
This redesign made using Tower Garden more intuitive and accessible by centralizing functions and simplifying workflows. As a result, users can care for their hydroponic devices with less effort and greater confidence, improving overall satisfaction and engagement.
Now that I had a starting point, I needed context to inform my next moves..
User Interviews Round 1
My team and I conducted a preliminary set of user interviews to better understand audience needs and identify our target users.
For the first round, we interviewed three different people of varying backgrounds and drew insights regarding their gardening habits and smartphone usage to help direct our design process.
User Interviews Round 1
User Interview Takeaways
Users are generally interested in hydroponic devices for their health, family, & educational benefits.
Real-time or routine-based notifications are preferred over generic scheduled reminders.
Users can only dedicate 2–4 hours per week to gardening.
Users want guidance on how to grow food, manage devices, & understand plant growth timelines.
User Persona Built from findings of Round 1
Research Notes
With our new research insights, it was time to start building..
The outline
Now that we had a direction, we started to decide on what features to include and what type of experience we aimed to users based on the interviews and user persona.
Main Features
Harvest Calendar
Daily reminders
Today's Tasks List
User Interface (Simple & Welcoming)
Kept text boxes and sections round and inoffensive
Kept text fairly large and spread out
basic, muted color scheme with greens and beiges to help create a calming effect on users as they navigate the app
Creating structure
After solidifying the features and direction of our app, I got started building some low-fidelity wireframes using Miro. I was put in charge of creating the designs.
In-progress Miro wireframes
Final prototypes
After the low-fidelity wireframes of the Tower Garden app were approved by my team, I worked on creating High-fidelity prototypes in Figma.
Prototype flow in progress
With some feedback from my team and a few others, I was able to come to a final version of the Tower Garden App prototype as seen below…
Final App Prototype Loop
My team and I were able to successfully create an app concept for Tower Garden and help customers simply and intuitively manage their hydroponic devices!
This case study gave me an incredible amount of insight into the design process and working with a team.
Leading the way
Being lead designer gave me valuable experience in managing a project from conception to final prototype.
Design Process
As one of my earlier projects, this experience helped me understand the full flow of design.
Focusing on User Needs
Interviews revealed the major factors in how people interact with hydroponic devices, shaping my design decisions.
Functionality vs Simplicity
I learned how to make a feature-rich app feel approachable, ensuring that users were not overwhelmed.
Although the Tower Garden app was just a concept created for a class project, it emulated the real obstacles and considerations of a real-world design challenge.
