Zinnia
A website that's the perfect place for plant people
ui, ux, web design, brand design, animation, concept project
Plant lovers are a passionate group, but the resources available to them are surprisingly scattered. Big box stores offer little variety, poor plant quality, and staff who can’t answer basic care questions. Local nurseries and specialty shops exist, but can be hard to find or out of reach. Care guides are spread across dozens of websites of varying reliability. And if you just want to ask another plant person a question, there’s no dedicated space for that.
Zinnia was designed to change that. The goal was to take the most common plant parent frustrations and solve them all in one place, creating a site that was as easy to navigate as it was useful. Before any design decisions were made, user research and persona development helped define exactly who Zinnia was for and what they needed most, ensuring that every feature and design choice had a real person behind.
Zinnia started with research into these frustrations and set out to solve them all in one place. Through user personas and journey mapping, three distinct users emerged: the beginner who just got their first plant and has no idea what it needs, the enthusiast who wants to support local businesses but doesn't know what's nearby, and the small nursery owner who struggles to attract customers beyond their immediate neighborhood. Each of them had different needs, but all of them pointed to the same gap: a lack of a reliable, community-driven hub for plant people.
The user journeys then helped identify exactly where friction points existed and where the design needed to work hardest. Starting with that research meant that every feature and design decision had a real person behind it, not just a hypothetical user.
One of the first things users will do on the site is create an account as a seller or shopper. This will give users access to the tools that best suit their experience on Zinnia.
Another key feature of Zinnia is the shops near me feature. Sure, users could just look up "plant shops near me", but Zinnia refines those results based on specific criteria such as distance, price range, or type of merchandise. This feature optimizes the users' search for the right store and allows them to interact with the seller in ways their own shop's website may not.
The visual design leans into the warmth and personality of plant culture, with deep greens, earthy tones, and a retro-inflected typography that feels more like a lifestyle brand than a reference tool.
