Foliar Effects
A responsive e-commerce website for Foliar Effects, a local company that sells botanist grown plants in upcycled and antique pots.
Role: Full Stack UX Designer
Software: WordPress & Woocommerce
The Problem
People don’t feel confident growing plants, don’t know exactly what the plant needs, or don’t have space for large plants in their apartment.
“Have a vision. He can do it.”
-Anonymous Feedback from Foliar Effects
Care Guides
Each plant is categorized based on sun, water, and location needs to help people find the perfect plant for their space and to help it thrive.
User Centered Categories
Apartment friendly, low maintenance, and pet friendly categories streamline target users to the plants that work best for them.
E-Commerce Partnership
Not only does the site have full e-commerce functionality, but I also taught Sarah how to enter and manage products so that she can sustainably run the store herself.
The Process
Client Goals
Sarah, Foliar Effects founder, was my neighbor at a crafts fair. After friendly conversation, she mentioned she needs a website, and so we started from there. I interviewed her on the spot about the history of her company, her passion for her work, and her goals for her site.
User Research: Google Forms
I sent out a google form to many of my group chats and then individually messaged friends/ family to ensure a more diverse pool (various ages, races, socioeconomic statuses, lifestyles). The form focused on the the plants (if any) they have, pain points with them, and preferences on potting.
User Personas
The 4 user personas varied: one liked plants for how they make the room feel but was limited by apartment space; one didn’t feel confident with plants; one loved them, and wanted to know exactly what they need; one found existential meaning in them.
Paper Wireframes
Quickly iterating to solve problems: how can we help someone who doesn’t feel confident? How can we capture the feeling of plants at home? How can we make shopping products easy?
Catered Categories
On the homepage, I focused on guiding users to the types of plants they would be interested in (apartments, low maintenance, indoor/ outdoor).
The One-of-One Challenge
All of the products are one-of-one. How can I get Sarah a website that she can sustainably and easily run if each product needs to be inserted by itself? We had a zoom call to discuss and review the current website progress.
Product Templates
I designed 6 sample products with full descriptions and categories. This way, we could easily copy and paste the products and revise them into real ones. It also let us test the website.
Care Guides within the Information Architecture
Each plant is categorized based on sun, water, and location needs. That way, users can find the perfect plant for their lifestyle and home.
Collaboration for Sustainability
In our next zoom call, Sarah volunteered to insert the products herself. The challenge: learning how to develop e-commerce sites is a skill. Solution: education!
I made her a guest administrator and taught her how to add products, as well as generally how WordPress works.
Iterate
In the zoom, we also reviewed the site changes (I had changed the WordPress theme and made updates due to added functionality). Now it was my turn to make changes!
Pre-Launch Testing
After transferring the domain from google domains to bluehost, we published the site and tested it for bugs.
Final Website
Impact
Foliar Effects goes Digital
Sarah now has an online presence and can sell her products, making her Instagram marketing much more profitable and opening the door for SEO based traffic.
Happy Homes
Users are now able to purchase plants to bring their home life, and they have stylish antiques and sustainable upcycled pots to lighten up the room.
Takeaways and Next Steps
Empowering Clients
I learned that it’s important to identify where clients want to do work, so that you can empower them to do it. Sarah was motivated to enter products herself, so this solved our biggest challenge: the one-of-one product.
Tech Support
As users continue to use the website and as Sarah makes sales, tech and UX challenges will arise, so I am available to help her solve them.