Zinnia is the perfect place for plant people. Find local plant shops, promote your own, and get plant care tips all in one place. This interactive website prototype began with a simple concept, shopping small, and a popular hobby, plants! The site expanded from there but the first step in the process was to research small businesses and shopper habits.
Experienced Plant Owner
Inexperienced Plant Owner
Nursery Owner
User Personas & Journey Maps
I created three user personas that broke my target audience down into three main categories. The experienced plant owner, the inexperienced plant owner, and the shop owner. The journey maps follow the user through the site from discovery to completion, varying depending on their purpose for using the site.
"The combination of consistent brand design and well-tailored user experience on this project successfully presented the feel of a professionally designed website. Subtle and fine-tuned animations and interactions throughout the user flows further strengthened the overall polish of this project."
Matt McGlynn, Associate Creative Director at Comcast
One of the first things users will come across is profile creation. They create an account as either a seller or shopper. Shoppers provide basic information to create their accounts, but sellers are more extensive. They provide information about their shop such as the name, location, what they sell, and the range in price point.
Seller & Shopper sign-up page
Seller sign-up screen
Another key feature of Zinnia is the shop locator. Small business promotion is an important part of Zinnia's mission so they make it easy to find small local plant shops near you. Users enter a zip code, set restrictions for how far they are willing to travel and select what sort of items they are looking for. Zinnia will display the shops within range with links to their account profile.
Shops near you search
Shops near you specifications page
Shops near you results
Less experienced plant parents can check out the grower's guide if they are looking for help on how to better care for their plants. The guide is divided into different plant categories such as cactus, flowering, low-light, and more.
If users still can't find the information they're looking for on the grower's guide they can visit the "Ask a Plant Parent" page. On this page, users can ask specific questions or choose from common threads to find the information they're looking for from other experienced growers. Zinnia provides users with access to an entire plant community.
Another feature within the Grower's Guide is the Perfect Plant Quiz. Users can take this short 3-question quiz to find out which plant is the one for them. At the end of the quiz, Zinnia will suggest a plant for the user and they can see more similar plants.
User flow video of the Perfect Plant Quiz
Instructor: Matt McGlynn