Blossom-Buddy: An Interactive Flowerpot to Inspire Healthy Habits

I developed Blossom-Buddy as a group project for the Prototyping Interaction course at Umeå University in Autumn 2023.

One core activity in the HCI discipline is the design of new and novel interactive computing systems in the form of prototypes. Such prototypes are created to bring a design idea to life, allowing for exploration, evaluation, improvement, and communication of the concept (Houde & Hill, 1997).
In this essay, I reflect on the process of designing Blossom-Buddy (Figure 1) as a novel interactive computing system.

Business Management Platform — Figure 1: Blossom-Buddy final prototype.

Blossom-Buddy Concept

Blossom-Buddy addresses common struggles with habit-building and behavior change by tapping into our innate desire to care for living things.
To maintain your plant's health, you must first complete your tasks. The system comprises:

Water and nutrient dispensers
Full-spectrum grow lights
An interactive digital screen displaying a virtual plant

Completing tasks—such as exercising, meditating, socializing, or reducing phone use—earns resources that keep your plant healthy and thriving.

Prototyping Process

Throughout the Blossom-Buddy project, prototypes played a crucial role in developing and refining the design:

Early Prototypes

Used primarily for ideation and communication, these prototypes clarified basic functionalities and guided the evolution of the initial concept.

Vertical Prototypes

These focused prototypes explored specific interactions in detail. We notably used React.js to prototype interactions quickly, assessing the usability of physical buttons and interface interactivity effectively (Lim, Stolterman & Tenenberg, 2008).

Vertical prototype created in React — Figure 3: React.js prototype for physical buttons interaction.

Integration Prototype

This comprehensive prototype combined all aspects of Blossom-Buddy. Though partially simulated using a "Wizard of Oz" technique, it allowed for effective lab-based user evaluations.

Integrated prototype with Figma interface — Figure 4: Figma interface.

Figma interface sad version — Figure 5: Figma interface, sad version.

Reflections

Blossom-Buddy exemplifies Research through Design (RtD) by generating knowledge and raising new research questions about motivational technologies and behavior change. The prototypes acted not only as design tools but also as instruments for inquiry and discovery. They highlighted how personality differences influence user responses and opened questions about optimal friction in persuasive design (Laschke, Hassenzahl & Diefenbach, 2011; Kehr et al., 2012). This project fostered my development of a prototype mindset, highlighting the power of simple, fast, and economical prototyping as critical in design exploration and research.

Future Directions

Future iterations of Blossom-Buddy could:

Integrate with smartphones and wearable devices for automatic task tracking
Further explore the balance of friction in behavior-change technology
Conduct field studies with fully functional prototypes to gain deeper insights into long-term behavioral impacts

Download Report: Full project report
React Prototype GitHub Repository: kiaksarg/blossom-buddy

References

Houde, S., & Hill, C. (1997). What do prototypes prototype? In Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 367–381). Elsevier.
Kehr, F., Kowatsch, T., Dintzis, C., & Buettner, R. (2012). A transformational product to improve self-control strength: The Chocolate Machine. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (Persuasive ’12). https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2207774
Laschke, M., Hassenzahl, M., & Diefenbach, S. (2011). Things with attitude: Transformational products. Proceedings of the Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces Conference (DPPI ’11).
Lim, Y.-K., Stolterman, E., & Tenenberg, J. (2008). The anatomy of prototypes: Prototypes as filters, prototypes as manifestations of design ideas. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 15(2), 7.