DIGGING IN THE GARDEN
Making composting easier for the avid gardener
It’s just dirt right?
Composting can’t be much harder than throwing dirt and food scraps in a bin... or at least that’s the assumption I had at the start of this project. My knowledge was quickly challenged after learning that composting is anything but simple.
4 week project at Argo design in conjunction with the Center for Integrated Design, UT Austin
Client: Native
Role: design researcher and product designer
This project began with the concept of “earth", the consumers yard, and tools, but it ultimately became about the avid gardener and the successes and failures they experience in their yard. We set out to design something to better connect gardeners to the earth, but we discovered that the connection is already there; it’s the quality and ease of maintaining it that causes frustrations to arise.
This case study is about understanding the individual gardener and realizing that the design concept we originally landed on wasn’t actually going to provide what our user needed.
We started with:
How might we improve the individual consumer's garden?
Then we wondered:
How might we improve the individual's composting experience?
Finally, we asked:
How might we increase the ease of composting so that individuals are confident their efforts are not a waste of time?
The problem:
As a student design team, we were challenged by Native design to explore the market of consumer garnering products to discover where the need is for more appealing gardening products. Native is a company focused on “creat[ing] products that help the home use the very best that nature has to offer” to help their customers “give back to the earth.” For the purpose of the class, our team was given the market segment of Earth in the Garden, which we could take in any direction we wanted, but the core of the design had to relate back to earth.
Research and Design
To put the project into perspective, we delved into the problem area by exploring three key questions to guide our research :
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Who is Native?
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What does Earth mean and how does it relate to the garden?
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What does Earth mean in designing for potential users and Native?
1. Who is Native?
A company focused on creating “products that help the home use the very best that nature has to offer and creating conscious products that are good for the home."
2. What does Earth mean and how does it relate to the garden?
What does designing for Earth mean? We used a form of a sense-making through use of a concept map to flesh out all of the various components of Earth and then broke down our seven categories into smaller components. Next, we used another concept map to explore aspects of the consumer’s garden to help us narrow down what areas we wanted to further understand.
Moving forward, we mapped out the stakeholders we wanted to speak with: avid gardeners and people who live in places without yards.
We developed a research plan to perform contextual interviews with potential users in their gardens so we could learn about their gardening process. We also visited several community gardens and gardening stores to better understand what already exists, how they are being used, and any work-arounds people currently use in their gardens to achieve a desired result.
2. What does Earth mean in designing for potential users and Native?
We conducted four contextual interviews with avid gardeners in their yards or home: Penny, Mary, and Clint who have yards, and Sarah, an apartment-owner, to learn how she finds ways to create an indoor garden.
Penny's front yard in Austin, TX
Mary's garden in Austin, TX
Interview Themes:
A yard allows people to feel connected to the world and nature:
“It makes me feel connected and grounded in this world of crazy politics, fighting, hatred, and all the hostility. I feel happy when I’m digging in the dirt on my hands and knees. I feel connected to the world.” - Mary
“My apartment feels like a jungle. I don’t have a yard, but I like to feel like I have my own little piece of nature inside with me.” - Sarah
Avid gardeners still want ease and simplicity:
“I thought the grass was just too much trouble to replace and maintain, so I decided to just pull it all out.” - Mary
“I’m a huge gardener, and I’m trying to be zero-waste. I compost indoors and outdoors, but I have a problem with my compost rotting. It’s not as simple as you think, I wish it was. You have to monitor what type of stuff you put in it otherwise you get maggots or it gets toxic.” - Clint
“I have potted plants because the yard gets too weedy and hard to maintain.” - Penny
Following our contextual interviews, we explored the question: What does Earth mean in designing for Native?
Native is focusing on making products that make sustainable living and eco-consciousness more accessible. The company’s target market are individuals who want to make a difference in their environment, are willing to try new things, and strive to make their future better. We want to focus on meaningful and high-impact products for Native in areas such as yard maintenance or customization.
We ideated potential areas of opportunity following our interviews and explored opportunities such as tools for accessible gardening, indoor gardening, outdoor furniture, composting, self-sufficient gardens, plant protection, garden planning, gardening services, and modular gardening. After further ideation, we went back to our our interviews and took a look which ideas we thought would bring the most value. We had noted that composting was something three of the interviewees did, with one of them using an outdoor composter, one using an indoor composter, and one had both methods.
None of us had personal experience with composting. We all had the same assumption that composting was simple. How difficult could composting be? It’s just throwing scraps into the dirt right? Designing for this should be simple.
Understanding Composting
We knew we needed more research into composting to further our understanding of it, so we analyzed all of the existing options for composting both indoor and outdoor. We also combed gardening message boards for common concerns or struggles people voiced about composting and any solutions that were offered.
We returned to the three interviewees that composted and asked them further questions about their experiences. What we found was enlightening and something we had never considered before. It’s not just about dirt, and composting is anything but simple.
Composting is a growing trend within the gardening and eco-conscious community. It consists of allowing natural waste to decompose in order to harvest nutrient rich soil for the garden.
There is a misunderstanding around the simplicity of composting. Composting works in a delicate balance of carbon components, nitrogen components, temperature, aeration, and moisture. An unbalanced compost will rot, breed unwanted bacteria or pathogens, or decomposition will stall.
From this discovery and our interviews, we created a persona and journey map of a current composting experience based on our interviewees and research learnings.
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We chose to focus on the journey phases around maintenance and use of the compost, because that's where most of the opportunities for improvement were.
Prototyping
Our initial prototype concept focused on creating a better way to compost indoors by designing a container that monitors the balance of carbon and nitrogen in the compost through a sensor system integrated into the insides of the bin.
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We tested our prototype with our users and found that the only way indoor composting works is if you have a self sustaining system with worms or some other decomposer involved, otherwise you just have rotting food scraps that don’t get broken down into useful fertilizer.
What Failed: Successful composting indoors requires a fully self-sufficient system that maintains temperature, heat, and nutrient balance necessary for ideal decomposition. We didn’t take into account all of the necessary variables in our design that indoor
composting requires.
Switching Direction: We took our learnings from our first concept and decided to not narrow our focus to only indoor composting and stray away from trying to design an entire composter. Instead, we chose to tackle the struggle of balancing compost. We took the same sensor concept we had in our previous prototype, but fleshed it out and made it adaptable to any compost system. We brought our new idea back to our user and watched him light up with excitement at the potential that this sensor held for him and his composting process.
The new composting experience with TERRA:
A month ago, Jake purchased Terra, a compost sensor system by Native that promotes easy monitoring of compost health. Upon returning home from work, he notices the light is flashing on the sensor so he walked over to the bin and the screen notifies him that his compost has an excess level of nitrogen, which is causing it to decompose too quickly. It suggests that he should add dry leaves, straw, and wood chips from his yard which would add more carbon to the mix, balancing out the composition.
He collects dry debris and throws it into the container. The light stops pulsing and turns off. After some time, the screen displays a checkmark, signaling his compost is once again at a healthy balance and on its way to becoming rich food for his beloved plants!
How it works:
It is a sensor system that senses the quality of the compost: monitoring moisture level, temperature, carbon/nitrogen ratio, and aeration. The screen attached to the sensors provides a clear display when sensors pick up an imbalance in the composition requiring maintenance such as mixing (aeration), too much carbon/nitrogen (add materials), or moisture (add water).
Sensor capabilities:
- Compatible with any composting container
- User places the sensor string on the perimeter of the bin
- Inserts the sensor rods onto the top of the mixture
- Solar powered
- Light flashes in “SOS” pattern signaling maintenance action needs to be taken
Low fidelity TERRA screes:
What TERRA has to offer:
1. Reduces confusion and guess-work in monitoring compost health
Most compost sensors only look at moisture/temperature, Terra looks at all of the necessary variables
2. Increases user confidence that they are not wasting their time and energy
Relieves burden of having to worry about compost health
3. Provides convenience for people who currently compost and serves as a
gateway tool for novices
Terra educates the user on how to compost effectively
4. Adaptable to all compost systems
No need need to buy and re-install a full composting system
Introducing TERRA
Possible Future Directions for TERRA
Creation of an app compatible with the sensors
Reduces need for the user
to remember to check their
compost bin
Incorporate location of composter
Provides data for Terra to
account for the climate and
conditions the compost is
subjected to
Usability testing to collect feedback on sensors
Talk to users to understand
what works and what
needs improvement
Reflection: Challenges and Takeaways
This project posed many challenges, from the short timeline, to working with a group of students with very different perspectives and experiences. I learned a lot about how to work with other people who differ from me, how to manage such a condensed and fast-paced turnaround, and what to do when the concept you originally landed on isn’t actually solving the right problem.
We had to change direction and re-test our new idea and prototype during the last week of the project, which was a big learning moment. We had to figure out how to move forward and not give up in desperation. It was difficult, but in the end, our concept was well-received. I learned more about how to work with clients, teammates, and myself during this project than I had in other projects that spanned several months.