Senior Capstone Project

Creating a Virtual Community Garden

 

Sprout is an interactive application where users can grow virtual gardens by sending and receiving positive messages.

 
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Visit the Community

Each window of the building holds a garden box with plants belonging to a member of the community. When you visit their boxes, you can see what plants they've planted and subsequently the kind of support that they need. You can then leave messages encouraging them to achieve their goals.

 
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Grow Your Garden

Just like how positivity benefits people, it benefits plants too. Each time your plants receive a message, they grow until you have a thriving garden. Hopefully, you will be thriving too.

 
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Receive Support

While we're spreading positivity to others, we can't forget ourselves. You can click on any plant in the garden to see its message history and be reminded that the community is behind you.

 

Our Mission

  • Finding Community During Isolation

    With society moving towards a more digital space, people are turning to technology for social interaction. Users need a new way to utilize it to foster a community that will provide support for each other and generates feelings of connectedness.

  • Create a Supportive Online Space Through Gardening

    By raising awareness of self-care practices like positive psychology and social interaction, we can help promote personal well-being. Sprout encourages users to spread positive messages to others in the community, as well as reflect on positive thoughts in order to grow their own plants.

Interaction Design

  • Starting off Strong

    Before a plant can begin to grow, we ask the user to start off on a good foot by setting their intention for the sprout. This helps achieve their goals and lets the community know what kind of support to give.

  • Spread Good Vibes

    When you visit a garden in the community, you can click on their plants to see what they need. When you share a positive message, it helps their plants grow and hopefully brings a smile to their face.

  • Feel the Love

    What goes around comes around, and just like you can send messages to others, they can send messages to you. When you click on your plants you can see words of encouragement from other users.

My Role in Creating Sprout

Sprout was created by a small team of designers and developers. I served as the visual designer and illustrator for Sprout. My role was to conceptualize what this virtual space would look like and how users would interact with it.

 

  • Concept Sketches

    I started by sketching out wireframe concepts for the main screens of Sprout. The team spent several weeks deciding what the user flow would look like.

  • Hi-Fi Interactions

    I created several angles and views of the planting interaction. I collaborated with developers to come up with a design they could easily implement with code.

  • Different Gardens Iterations

    I was tasked with designing the overall look of the community garden. I really struggled with the illustrative style of the garden view and made several different iterations.

  • Pivoting Directions

    After a meeting with my professor, we came up with a design solution to the community garden problem together. We decided that an apartment building would be the best way to demonstrate our concept, and would be easy to navigate from a user perspective.

  • Plant Illustrations

    I created six different plant designs that represent positive self care attributes.

  • Pulling it all Together

    The team worked down to the wire to implement my new illustrations into the code, and everything was successfully launched for Imagine RIT!

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Meet the Team Behind Sprout