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TIMELINE
5 Months
TEAM
Sabrena Chedid
Joseph Chen
Selena Sun
ROLE
Product Designer
SKILLS
UX Research
Visual Design
Wireframing
Prototyping
Sketching
STORY
Our client, the coordinator of the Washtenaw County Rain Garden Program, sought a redesign to attract a broader demographic and increase participation. Through user research, we identified key challenges around community engagement, accessibility, and motivation to get started.
To address these needs, we designed a beginner’s guide, community section, photo gallery, help page, and events page, which users found more engaging and exciting during comparative usability testing.
THE BACKGROUND
Washtenaw County promotes rain gardening education to protect surface water and the environment.
Our client, Susan Bryan, is the coordinator of the Rain Garden Program at the Washtenaw County Water Resources Office. They are a governmental body that seeks to inspire residents and communities of Washtenaw County to protect surface water and the environment while maintaining necessary drainage. They are responsible for the Rain Garden Program, which teaches people how to design and install rain gardens in their homes. Rain gardening is an environmentally friendly practice that helps capture stormwater runoff before it pollutes local rivers and supports local biodiversity.
THE PROBLEM
The existing website does not effectively attract or inform new participants, reducing interest in the program.
The current Washtenaw County rain garden website, the primary source of information about the program, has gaps in engaging potential new rain gardeners. People using the website struggle to find relevant information presented in a way that is engaging, aesthetically pleasing, and inspiring, which limits their participation and hinders the program's ability to expand its reach and support sustainable practices.
THE OBJECTIVES
We aim to support the client’s mission to expand rain gardening by improving their site's user experience.
➡️
By making the website more engaging and relatable to potential rain gardeners, we aim to broaden participation and promote long-term sustainability. The following objectives are designed to achieve this mission and are to be validated through user testing:
📉 Lower perceived barriers to joining the program…
through creating a guide that simplifies and summarizes the steps of rain gardening.
🧑🧑🧒🧒 Build a sense of community for the rain gardeners…
through a storytelling tool that fosters connections between prospective and current rain gardeners.
🔎 Enhance website navigability for rain gardeners…
by improving the information hierarchy and reducing search time for core information.
THE CONSTRAINTS
We faced three significant constraints that heavily influenced how we designed our solution.
🎨 Restricted Design Style
As part of the county's website, our redesign needed to follow its style. Without access to official design guide, we matched the existing design as closely as possible while still trying to keep it visually appealing.
🖥️ Limited Technical Abilities
Since our client built the site using a website builder and had limited technical knowledge, their ability to implement complex features was restricted. Therefore, we were unable to propose anything too advanced.
📸 Very Few Visual Content
Although our client had many photos, most were low quality and not suitable for the website. This made it challenging to create engaging visual content, even though it was essential to the user experience.
THE SOLUTION
We redesigned five pages of the program site to boost engagement, increase accessibility, and inspire action.
After our research phase, we identified four initial design requirements: a step-by-step beginner’s guide, a mentorship feature, an events calendar, and a photo gallery with testimonials. However, through three rounds of iterative feedback from our client, peers, and user testing, along with project constraints, we refined these ideas. Some were retained, while others were adapted or replaced.
Homepage
Added a community section to strengthen community engagement and reorganized content for easier browsing.
Step-By-Step Guide
Get and Give Help
Events
Featured Stories
SUCCESS
A comparative usability study showed that our redesign significantly improved the user experience.
We conducted an online between-subject comparative usability test with 19 participants, who were randomly assigned to either the current or redesigned website. We measured four quantitative and three qualitative measures. The redesigned site showed substantial improvement across all metrics.
Quantitative Measures
✅ 77% to 98%
In Task Success
⏱️ 70% Faster
Time on Task
📈 4.48 to 6.31
In SEQ Score
📈 35 to 85
In SUS Score
Qualitative Measures
🤔 100% to 18%
Less Confusion
🧑🧑🧒🧒 13% to 100%
Felt Connected
💪 13% to 100%
Felt Gardening Was Easier
RESEARCH GOALS
Our goal is to understand the needs and behaviors of current and potential rain gardeners.
These questions were created to help us reach our goal.
1
What factors influence individuals to discover and become interested in rain gardening?
2
What barriers prevent individuals from starting rain gardens?
3
How can the website inspire and engage users in starting and maintaining rain gardens?
4
What motivates individuals to begin their rain gardens?
RESEARCH (INTERVIEWS)
We interviewed six experienced rain gardeners to gain a comprehensive view of their journey.
Methodology
We conducted online interviews with six current rain gardeners. This method enabled follow-up questions, allowing us to explore their thought processes and capture the nuances of their journey from getting started to long-term participation. Participants were recruited through the client’s newsletter with a $30 incentive, and all provided consent before the interview. The three points below summarize the research focus of our interview.
👣
Explore their rain gardening journey, including meaningful stages and milestones, and the perceived rewards and unexpected benefits they have experienced.
🚦
Identify the challenges they encountered when starting a rain garden and the motivations that helped them begin and persevere through their journey.
🌐
Understand the website’s role in their journey, highlighting which features they found helpful or lacking, and additional elements they would find beneficial.
The online interview has five main sections, each targeting different parts of the research focus.
Results
After completing the interviews and analyzing the transcripts, we conducted a card-sorting exercise to synthesize our findings. This process helped us categorize key insights into three main themes.
📍 Entry Point
Initial Learning: All participants started by consulting experts or taking a rain gardening class to gain more knowledge.
Structured Guidance: Many appreciated structured learning or step-by-step instruction, which made the process easier to follow.
Main Challenges: The biggest obstacles were physical labor and time commitment, with some taking years to complete their garden.
👥 Social Interactions
Low Website Engagement: Most participants had not visited the site recently, but one said the homepage is essential for attracting newcomers.
Need for Clearer Guidance: Participants want a simpler and clearer step-by-step rain gardening guide for starting one.
Desire for Community: They expressed a strong need for more opportunities to connect with other gardeners.
🌐 Website Feedback
Interest from Passersby: Half of the participants shared that they enjoy passersby who look at their gardens and ask questions about their rain gardens.
Plant Exchanges as Connection: Exchanging plants is a common way for members of the rain gardening community to interact with one another.
Teaching and Mentoring: Many enjoy helping and educating other rain gardeners through in-person events like community classes and volunteering, or online groups like Facebook groups.
Preference for In-Person Engagement: Rain gardeners strongly prefer face-to-face interactions over the online engagement formats that became common during COVID.
Desire for a Stronger Community: Many participants have expressed wanting more engagement or seeing the potential in a rain gardening community.
RESEARCH (SURVEY)
We gathered 151 survey responses, capturing user motivations, challenges, visuals, and desired features.
Methodology
We gathered 151 responses, with 58% from experienced rain gardeners and 42% from potential rain gardeners, defined as individuals interested in sustainability and gardening. The survey format allowed us to capture diverse perspectives. Participants were recruited through Facebook gardening groups and the client’s newsletter, with a small incentive offered to thirty randomly selected respondents.
▶️
Understand how participants were first introduced to rain gardening and what sparked their initial interest.
🚦
Identify the barriers they face and the motivations that drive them to pursue rain gardening.
🎁
Determine the most compelling incentives that would encourage participation.
💎
Discover the features and information they would find valuable on the website.
📸
Assess the types of visuals that attract and engage users.
🧑🧑🧒🧒
Understand the community features they desire to foster engagement and support.
Our survey included six sections, each designed to gather insights aligned with our research focus. One section featured a photo elicitation exercise to understand which visuals users prefer.
Results
After completing the interviews and analyzing the transcripts, we conducted a card-sorting exercise to synthesize our findings. This process helped us categorize key insights into three main themes.
Entry Point and Motivations
Challenges and Support
Visual Learning Preferences
Introduction Methods: 46% learned about rain gardening through workshops or social events, 41% through yard signs, and 27% from friends, family, or neighbors.
Environmental Motivations: 88% started rain gardening to reduce water runoff and pollution, while 82% wanted to support local wildlife.
Aesthetic Appeal: Approximately 50% of respondents were motivated to start because they wanted to improve the appearance of their yard.
RESEARCH (SYNTHESIS)
We synthesized key insights about user journeys and needs from interviews and surveys into five main points.
We compiled key findings from both interviews and surveys and organized them using affinity diagramming. By grouping similar ideas based on recurring patterns, we were able to identify overarching themes. The process helped us transform our data into meaningful insights that shaped our research findings.
Five Key Findings Validated By
Interviews and Surveys
💪 Physical Labor and Time Discourage Participation
Manual labor and time commitment are major barriers, with many participants citing digging and installation as the most challenging steps.
🧑🏫 Structured Learning Facilitates Onboarding
Many gardeners begin through classes or expert guidance due to limited knowledge, showing the need for clear, beginner-friendly learning resources.
🧑🧑🧒🧒 Interactive Community Increases Retention
Participants want more opportunities to connect, especially in-person events, indicating that community features could improve long-term engagement.
🌿 Environmental Benefits are the Strongest Motivator
Most participants were motivated by reducing runoff and supporting wildlife, indicating environmental impact is the primary driver for participation.
📸 Visual and Instructional Content Increases Engagement
Before-and-after images were the most engaging, but users also want clear instructions alongside visuals to feel confident getting started.
SYNTHESIS (USER PERSONAS)
We developed two user personas, one new and one experienced rain gardener, based on research findings.
We created one experienced gardener persona and one new gardener persona to accurately represent the users our redesigned site is targeting. Our goal is to retain and engage existing gardeners while also attracting and supporting newcomers.
Sally represents those who are interested but feel overwhelmed by the process. By providing clear guidance, step-by-step instructions, and mentorship, the website helps convert curiosity into action.
Jane values community and mentorship opportunities. By fostering connections between experienced and new rain gardeners, the site enhances engagement and strengthens the community.
SYNTHESIS (USER SCENARIOS)
We created a scenario for each persona to explore solutions that align with user needs and motivations.
After understanding our target users, we created scenarios to show how our design solutions address their pain points in real contexts and help them reach their goals.
Sally's Scenario
Sally’s journey highlights common beginner challenges, including a lack of knowledge, fear of failure, and limited time. Her scenario highlights the importance of simple, supportive features, such as a beginner’s guide and mentorship, in helping new gardeners feel confident and take action.
🧨 Trigger
After noticing a rain garden sign in her neighbor’s yard, Sally, a busy professor with little free time, becomes curious about rain gardening due to its environmental benefits.
🚧 Challenge #1
One evening, she searches online for more information. She hopes to learn how to start a small, manageable garden, but the complexity of different guides leaves her feeling overwhelmed.
💡 Solution #1
Then, she stumbles upon the rain gardening page on the Washtenaw County website. The homepage catches her attention with a section named “Beginner’s Guide to Rain Gardening,” which offers a step-by-step tutorial. Encouraged by the simple structure, she clicks on it and follows an interactive guide that walks her through site selection, plant choices, and setup tips.
🚧 Challenge #2
However, she still feels unsure if she can build the garden alone.
💡 Solution #2
She then notices a “Find a Mentor” feature connecting beginners with experienced gardeners, relieving her of her fear of failure. She signs up for mentorship and receives a welcome email with a clear action plan, giving her confidence knowing she can get help if she gets stuck.
🎉 Outcome
She feels excited and motivated rather than intimidated, as the site has provided a clear starting point. The availability of structured guidance and mentorship makes rain gardening seem more achievable, resolving her initial uncertainty and making her more likely to follow through.
Jane's Scenario
Jane’s experience emphasizes the importance of community engagement and mentorship for long-term users. Her scenario shows how features like a community forum, mentorship program, and events calendar help experienced gardeners stay involved and contribute.
🧨 Trigger
Jane, an experienced gardener with two established rain gardens, has been practicing for a few years but wishes for more interaction with fellow gardeners.
🚧 Challenge #1
She enjoys teaching others, sharing her knowledge, and attending sustainability events, but struggles to find ongoing rain gardening community events.
💡 Solution #1
One day, she visits the rain gardening page on the Washtenaw County website, looking for social opportunities, and sees a section titled “Join the Community.” Curious, she clicks on it and discovers a forum where gardeners share their experiences, solve issues, and organize meetups. She also finds a “Mentorship Program” that allows experienced gardeners to guide newbies. Excited by the opportunity, she signs up as a mentor, feeling fulfilled by the possibility of helping others.
🚧 Challenge #2
However, she still wishes there were more in-person events.
💡 Solution #2
Browsing further, she finds a local events calendar that lists upcoming rain gardening workshops and plant exchanges. She registers for a meetup, feeling satisfied that she now has a way to connect with both new and experienced gardeners.
🎉 Outcome
The site has provided her with what she was looking for: a way to stay engaged, share her knowledge, and be part of an active rain gardening community, reinforcing her commitment to the practice and community.
CLIENT REQUIREMENTS
We wanted to focus on sustainable fashion, but we did not have a specific area in mind, so we explored a range of topics. We focused on the broader issue of the disposal, reselling, and recycling of clothes.
IDEATION (PERSONAS)
To understand key stakeholders, we created three personas: the employee, the seller, and the buyer.
By revisiting our interviews and transcripts, we identified three key perspectives in the second-hand clothing ecosystem: buyers, sellers, and the employees who facilitate transactions between them. To represent this range of stakeholders, we created personas that include an employee, a seller, and a buyer.
While we incorporated standard persona elements such as biography, goals, frustrations, quotes, and demographics, we also added factors specific to the secondhand clothing market. These included style preferences and motivations unique to clothing decisions. These additions allowed us to create personas that more accurately reflected the real needs and behaviors of users throughout the clothing lifecycle.
By revisiting our interviews and transcripts, we identified three key perspectives in the second-hand clothing ecosystem: buyers, sellers, and the employees who facilitate transactions between them. To represent this range of stakeholders, we created personas that include an employee, a seller, and a buyer.
While we incorporated standard persona elements such as biography, goals, frustrations, quotes, and demographics, we also added factors specific to the secondhand clothing market. These included style preferences and motivations unique to clothing decisions. These additions allowed us to create personas that more accurately reflected the real needs and behaviors of users throughout the clothing lifecycle.
IDEATION (SCENARIOS)
To explore our solutions in context, we created one scenario each for an employee, a seller, and a buyer.
To begin the process of developing scenarios, our team discussed our sketches and selected a few potential solutions from our sketches to highlight in these scenarios: allowing in-person stores to sell more clothes online, providing price estimates on second-hand clothing, informing users of current offerings at local resale stores, and ranking sustainability practices at different resale stores.
Employee
Seller
Buyer
Key Guide
Setting
Agent
Goals
Actions
Events
Employee
Vivian is a store manager at Plato's Closet, but her dream is to own her own resale shop. At Plato's Closet, she has been working diligently to buy and sell more clothing items across the store. Vivian wants to speed up the process of getting more clothes available for sale online (trigger), as more sellers are approaching the store, and buyers are eager for new items. She believes the store's process for sorting clothes is pretty efficient, but sees the opportunity to list the entire store inventory online, instead of just select pieces (pain point). One evening after the store closes, Vivian explores the features on the app her store uses to estimate clothing prices. She finds an online shop feature on the app, which allows her to catalog items directly into the store's online inventory with minimal effort, and automatically deletes items if they are sold in person. She uses the store's database to quickly upload the details of each new item that arrived earlier in the day. Vivian is relieved (emotion) that she doesn't have to manually re-enter item details and can still ensure the store's in-person and online sales are aligned. By utilizing the app, Vivian successfully lists more items online without disrupting in-store sales, helping the store keep up with both in-person and online demand (resolution).
IDEATION (STORYBOARDS)
We turned two of the scenarios into storyboards that visually illustrate the user journey.
Out of the three scenarios, we decided to focus on the employee and seller ones. The visualization helped us imagine what our solutions could potentially look like and how they could serve our target users.
Employee
Seller
MAKING THE BIG DECISION
After further discussion, we realized we could support both employees and sellers by creating a solution that streamlines their transaction process, instead of choosing just one user group to focus on.
IDEATION (USER FLOW)
We created a user flow for a platform designed to improve interactions between employees and sellers.
We decided to design two versions of our platform: an tablet version for employees, based on interviews indicating that resale store staff primarily use tablets, and a mobile version for sellers. After determining the features for each version, we created detailed user flows for both employees and sellers to ensure a seamless and intuitive experience across the entire platform.
DESIGN & EVALUATION (LOW-FI)
Our goal was to create enough screens and interactions to gather initial feedback on our user flow.
We conducted user testing with five classmates, asking them to perform tasks using our prototype, while we observed whether they could complete the tasks and identified which parts were confusing or difficult to use. We also asked for their feedback on the prototype at the end of the session. The two tasks were to find the store offering the highest price, as a seller, and update the store's wishlist to include men's boots, as an employee.
From this testing, we received extensive feedback, but the following three takeaways were some of the most important ones that informed our design changes.
Wishlist Edit
Users found adding items slow, so we simplified to typing and publishing directly instead of editing.
Store Filter
Back Buttons
Before
After
DESIGN & EVALUATION (MID-FI)
We conducted more testing to see if our improvements were effective and to identify any remaining issues.
We conducted another round of user testing with five new participants. The seller's task remained the same: finding the store offering the highest price. However, we changed the employee task to processing a drop-off batch for compensation, as this feature had not been tested previously.
We also received a lot of feedback from this round of testing, and these three points led to some of the bigger changes made to our prototype.
Wishlist for Sellers
Users could not locate each store’s wishlist, so we added a “What to Bring” section to the homepage for quick access.
Quality Tags
Item Deselection
Before
After
DESIGN & EVALUATION (HIGH-FI)
After two rounds of user testing, we finalized our design and tried to incorporate as much feedback as possible.
To see the full prototype and how our solution improves the transaction process between employees and sellers, please refer to the overview section.
REFLECTION (WHAT WE DID WELL)
The three key successes from this project…
Our team achieved great success, winning first place among all UX projects. The following are the key reasons I believe we reached that level of success.
Understanding All Perspectives
We went out of our way to get in touch with resale and donation center employees, giving us insights from all sides of the secondhand clothing cycle.
Exploration of Ideas
Instead of settling on initial ideas, we spent lots of time brainstorming and testing different solutions to find the best fit for our users’ needs.
Having Iterative Feedback
We conducted several critique rounds with classmates, using their feedback to simplify our design, fix flaws, and strengthen overall usability.
REFLECTION (LESSONS LEARNED)
The three main lessons from this project…
Our team achieved great success, winning first place among all UX projects. The following are the key reasons I believe we reached that level of success.
Testing with Real Employees
More Design Research
Platform Format Exploration
If we had more time and easier access to store employees, we would test our prototype with actual store employees to gather real feedback from primary users instead of relying on classmates simulating their roles.
We could conduct deeper research into how similar apps work, especially those with comparable features, to evaluate whether our design aligns with user expectations and established industry standards.
There was ongoing debate about whether our solution should be a website or an app. This question came up multiple times during user testing and could be explored further to determine the most best platform for our users.
REFLECTION (TEAM WORK)
The three reasons our team worked so well…
A large part of this project's success was due to my teammates. This was one of the best teams I have ever worked with, and I want to highlight the reasons why we worked so effectively together.
Clear Responsibilities
We had a shared Google Sheet with clear responsibilities and deadlines. Everyone consistently delivered their work on time and with high quality.
Being Respectful
We encouraged open communication, actively listened to each other’s ideas, and made sure every voice was considered in our decision-making.
Being Understanding
We were supportive and understanding of one another. If someone was sick or had a busy week, others willingly stepped in to help.