Plant Doctor
Plant Doctor is a mobile app designed to help people understand their plants, identify issues, and care for them with confidence.
It simplifies plant care by turning questions and concerns into clear, actionable guidance.
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Conceptual mobile app focused on plant identification and care
Designed as part of independent UX practice
Platforms: iOS (mobile-first)
Originally created January 2025 and iterated over time
The Problem
Many people enjoy owning plants but struggle to keep them healthy over time.
When something goes wrong, plant care often turns into guesswork, scattered advice, and uncertainty about what to do next.
Key UX Decisions
The following design decisions shaped how users understand their plants, diagnose issues, and care for them over time.
Centering the experience around individual plants
The experience is centered around individual plants rather than app features. Each plant has its own page that clearly explains lighting, watering, difficulty level, and other care needs, and saved plants are collected in a personal plant library for easy reference.
Turning diagnosis into a clear, readable result
When something is wrong with a plant, diagnosis results prioritize clarity over complexity. Clear hierarchy and plain language help users understand the issue and what to do next without unnecessary technical details.
Designing plant care as ongoing support, not a one-time answer
Plant care rarely involves a single fix, so the experience is designed to support users over time rather than provide one-time answers.
To maintain consistency across the app, I defined a small set of core UI elements including buttons, color usage, and typography. This helped keep the experience cohesive and easy to navigate.
Diagnosing a Plant Issue
A simple question-based flow helps users identify plant issues and understand what to do next.
Supporting ongoing plant care
Beyond identification and diagnosis, the app supports ongoing plant care through daily care guidance, saved plants, community discussions, and research-based resources. The homepage surfaces what each plant needs today, while additional support helps users learn and stay confident over time.
Reflections
Designing Plant Doctor reinforced the importance of meeting users where they are emotionally, especially when something they care about feels at risk.
Centering the experience around individual plants helped keep the app grounded in real user mental models rather than abstract features.
Focusing on clarity in diagnosis showed how much confidence can be built by reducing complexity at stressful moments.
Designing for ongoing care, rather than one-time answers, emphasized the value of supporting habits and learning over time.