Pottly

About the project

Pottly was created during a group project in the course Tangible Interaction. The task given in the course was to create a tangible artifact that encourages environmentally friendly behavior. After a few sessions of brainstorming, we decided on the topic of reduced consumption. This was then narrowed down to designing a pot that motivates and facilitates the process of growing and caring for herbs at home.

To demonstrate Pottly, a prototype was programmed and developed with the use of an Arduino board.

1.

THE PROBLEM

How might we design a tangible artifact that not only speeds up and facilitate the process of growing herbs at home, but also uses interaction styles that encourages the user to change their behavior and attitude?

2.

USER RESEARCH

In order to understand the problem space, multiple participants were recruited to take part in interviews and photo journals. Based on the findings requirements were defined.

3.

IDEATION

After several ideation sessions, with sketch storms and solution sketching, a bunch of ideas were generated. Voting on the most popular ideas allowed us to proceed with a set of three different ideas.

4.

PROTOTYPING & TESTING

The ideas were prototyped and then evaluated in focus groups. After some iterations, the ideas were combined and refined to one prototype.

The Concept

The water reservoir

To simplify the process of caring for plants, Pottly is divided into two sections. One section carries the herb while the other section functions as a water reservoir. By including a water reservoir, the users can water their herbs without having to bring water everytime. Through visual feedback, Pottly tells the user how much water there is left in the reservoir. This is communicated through having Pottly change in size depending on the water level.

Asking the plant

In order to support the users in understanding the herbs need, the user can ask Pottly whether or not the herbs needs to be watered. This is done through touching the herbs petals. Touching the petals will either result in the pot lighting up in blue, indicating that the herb needs to be watered. Or the pot lights up in green, indicating that the herb is in a good state.

Watering the plant

If the herb needs watering, the user can simply hold the pot to channel water from the container to the herb. The ways of interacting with Pottly, touching the petals and holding the pot, are believed to strengthen the emotional bond between the user and the herb, and thus motivate them to start growing at home.