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PlantSnap was most credible, but PlantNet was more useful.

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PlantSnap was most credible, but PlantNet was more useful.

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All of these apps had pros and cons in terms of UX design. In my evaluation of them, I factored three primary aspects:

Usable - Was the app easy to use and intuitive to navigate?

Credible - Was it accurate and trustworthy in identifying the plant?

Useful - Did it tell me overall information about the plant in a concise manner? Did it tell me how to care for the plant?

Likewise to Jamie, I was discouraged by GardenAnswers asking me to create a profile, but for the sake of testing, I went ahead, and hoped the effort was worthwhile. It was usable and the steps to guide you through the set up were helpful. I was disappointed by the search results though- it provided me with a list of different plants by their latin names, and required me to click into each one to find the common name. I was confused by the immediate option to narrow my search - this reduced my confidence that it had accurately identified my plant. While the first result was accurate, I didn’t care for the experience and the overall lack of information it provided.

iNaturalist was confusing to me. It wasn’t immediately obvious how to identify a plant, and when I realized that I would need to wait for someone in the community to identify my plant, it was a big stroke against the app. While it is a cool app for learning about flora and fauna in your area, it wasn’t useful for quick and effective plant identification.

PlantSnap gave me the most confident plant identification of my Chinese Evergreen. While the app was intuitive to use, I appreciated the mini tutorial to create an equal opportunity experience for all levels of tech users. Unfortunately, this app didn’t provide much information beyond a couple sentences about its origin and a half filled in taxonomy. I also found mislead by the icons at the bottom regarding watering, feeding, etc. I presumed these would give me specific tips about this plant in particular, but they were general tidbits of information.

PlantNet was the most intuitive to use from the start, with their giant ‘Identify’ button but it was not overly confident that my plant was a match. it gave me a 43% match to the proper identification. Had I been using this on an unknown plant, it isn’t very trustworthy. It did provide significant information and images, but I would have preferred more concise information within the app instead of Wikipedia and going out to other plant websites.

Overall, 3 of the 4 apps identified my plant, but I was only confident that PlantSnap would be credible in unknown situations, which is when apps like this are most used. None of these apps were overly useful in providing concise information about the plant or giving me easy to follow care instructions. On the positive side, all 4 were relatively easy to use with little to no time required to learn how to navigate and use them.

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I didn't spend a lot of time on this, button of the key differences that I noticed is the need to create accounts on three of the four apps encountered in order for them to be useful. While I certainly have no problem creating accounts for multiple services if I think that I am going to use them in the future, I prefer to avoid having my personal information casually spread around the internet to no purpose.

Which is why, in my opinion, even though I found PlantNet challenging to use it was the best.

PlantNet correctly identified the house plants that I showed it, and did so quite quickly.

While I understand that these apps take time and money to create, I would rather support apps that generate income from ad revenue but do not collect personal information than those who collect personal information that will almost certainly get sold.

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PlantNet

- Initial screen asks to choose flora, I was unfamiliar with the term flora (which was confusing to me)

- No tutorial for first time users, all it says is “Touch to identify”

- Chose the related “organ” (also an unfamiliar term, but the options helped me realize what they are asking for)

- I selected “Flower”, found Hippeastrum on the first try and asked to search the world flora flora instead of Canada.

- The information page was a little confusing as the headings were icons.

- It provided the wiki page which was helpful in identifying information about the plant but it was not the most credible source of information.

PlantSnap

- Mini intro on the app (helped get me familiar with the app)

- Tutorial provided to guide the user on how to upload and search my plant.

- The correct name Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) appeared as the 5th option.

- Provides useful info that is easily viewable on mobile with multiple tabs, that can be easily closed and reopened.

GardenAnswer

- Provided steps to sign-up and also collected info on my gardening experience (wonder if this makes a difference in my experience with the app..)

- Simple app design, clear view of all the features of the app

- Although no tutorial it provided clear instructions on how to upload picture to the site and also had advice on taking a good picture

- Found Hippeastrum as the first option, but it had the option to narrow the search by “plant category” used simple terminology that I was able to understand

- Provided a brief yet informative overview of the plant and simple instructions

iNaturalist

- Mini intro on the app (helped get me familiar with the app)

- No tutorial but the camera button was placed in the center with the words “Observe” which was the same term used in the initial intro.

- Was confused on what to click after uploading as it seemed as though I had to save, but I found the “What did you see?” button that had view suggestions.

- The first suggestion got Hippeastrum and it provided more info only after clicking the “i” button, if I clicked on the flower name it took me back to the details page which was initially frustrating.

All platforms helped me figure out the plant I was observing and all apps figured out the plant as the first option except for PlantSnap which displayed it as the 5th tab. However, PlantSnap had the better user experience in my opinion as it assisted first time users with the mini tutorial that could have been skipped by more experienced users. Then the information was provided in a mobile friendly format, with tabs that I could swipe through to access more information if I was interested. However, I was only able to find an interesting fact on the plant using the PlantNet app, I was amazed to know that alkaloids in this plants bulb has properties to fight against malaria caused by P. falciparum!

Thanks,
Vithu

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Unfortunately, I don't have a plant in my house, which reminds me that I should. Anyway, I used a plastic plant for this activity. I like how PlanNet was very easy to use without having to create an account. I like that it saves my snaps as a guest user. It did tell me ''undetermined species'' so I guess IKEA did something wrong with their design haha. As for Garden Answers, I didn't like how I can't use it instantly without creating an account first and probably setting up a payment option. PlantSnap did give me a number of possible answers, but I did not like that it does not allow me to access my snaps unless I create an account, so every time I open the app I have to retake a snap. Overall, the UI was very pleasant, I liked it the best out of all the 4 apps. The iNaturalist was okay, but I did find it a little bit overwhelming to learn all the features and what they are used for. It also gave me ''unknown'' for a result, so, either IKEA did a really bad job or the credibility of PlantSnap is questionable, or maybe it is too smart?. Overall, my favorite was PlantSnap.

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I am visiting Vancouver this week, so snapped a photo of this spring beauty on my way back to my hotel today.  

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This plant has a long history of medicinal uses that range from treating headaches and general pain to inducing early abortions by increasing menstrual flow.  Most interestingly, a compound derived from its POISONOUS root is currently being used as a memory enhancer and to treat mild dementia.
-Robyn

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I liked this activity in terms of thinking about each app from an experience design perspective. Without going into too much details here are a few little observations:
- PlantNet and PlantSnap both allowed for a quick open and photograph experience, with not need to sign in.
-GardenAnswer cannot be utilized without first creating an account, and for our purposes (and any purposes I would be using one of these apps for), it was an immediate pass for me.
-iNaturalist was easy enough to use, but did not have any instant identification of the plant. It looks like it is very much community based, and I would have to wait for a community member to recognize the plant.

I purposely didn't explore the various apps in depth, as I wanted to know what initial Experience Design characteristics stuck out (from the perspective of someone that will always be a casual user). From initial experience, I would go with PlantNet of GardenAnswer, as they both instantly worked, and identified my plant right away.
-Jamie

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To test out each various app, I just took a photo of a plant that my wife and I had bought at a local grocery store. I was surprised to find out that if the plant grows large enough (and if the app has correctly identified the plant), then it will eventually grow lovely white flowers!
-Jamie

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This common house plant is non-toxic ad safe for households with children and pets. Uncommonly this plant can be have herbal and medicinal uses. The app was easy to use, I quickly took a picture and the app provided multiple images to choose the best fit and click "confirm." Once confirmed I was able to view many additional images, and can click on "W" to read more about the species on wikipedia. -Meagan

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One of the plants that grows in copious amounts throughout my yard. (This image was again created by Padlet... a watercolour of common plantain)

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An example of what kind of images Padlet can create to show the plants you visit. You can click on the "images" and then "I can't draw" and then just type in what you want. I typed in "Oil painting of peonies and lilac flowers" to get this image