Ferns with Friends is an app for anyone, from those of us who can barely keep a pet rock alive, all the way to tried and true green thumbs. We make plant care a relaxing, fun, and social ritual you can participate in at your own pace.
With a plant well-being feedback system, Ferns with Friends takes away the mystery of growing a happy, healthy plant collection, making it accessible and gamified for people of all experience levels. The app is linked to an insert in each plant’s pot which tracks and reports back metrics integral to the plant’s health, including pH level, soil water content, soil nutrition, and light exposure. This use of data metrics incentivizes people to use the app through an appeal to authority, because it provides objective, data-driven ways to assess the plant’s health and well-being. Furthermore, these metrics are summarized in a metric for the plant’s “overall happiness” level, adding a cute and fun aspect to this very scientific approach for plant care, which contributes to users’ liking of the app. The care rituals outlined by our app are specific to each plant and its environment. If we detect any significant environmental changes, either forecasted or in real time, we’ll walk you through exactly how to ensure your plant comes out unscathed.
Based on this overall happiness level, Ferns with Friends tracks a streak of how many consecutive days the plant has charted good vitals, introducing a gamified aspect to plant care, as the user is challenged to see how long they can maintain their plants’ happiness streak for. The gamification of app care is further extended in the “petals” features, which functions as currency you can use to purchase various upgrades and accessories for your plants, or to gift to friends. Petals are earned by maintaining daily plant care streaks. This motivates users to continually return to the app to maintain consistency and commitment, and it provides some sense of routine for users to daily check their plants’ vitals and maintain the streak. There is relatively low time commitment and money involved in maintaining this routine, and it does not require complex cognitive cycles.
Ferns with Friends also allows you to connect with other plant-growing users and make “Plant Buddies,” so you can track your plants’ progress alongside a community of plant buddies, which helps with both enjoyment and accountability. This adds an aspect of social proof to the app, because seeing that other people are actively taking care of their plants and using the app provides additional motivation for users to do the same. This also enhances the gamification of plant care, because now you can also compare your own plants’ health to your Plant Buddies’, and compete to see who can maintain longer happiness streaks.
We are also capitalizing on the idea that personifying your plants can help with maintaining motivation to care for them. This has to do with the principle of reciprocity because by investing time and care into your plant, in return you receive a sense of achievement, which is amplified by a personal attachment to the cute, personified plant images.
The user motivation for our app comes from the pleasure of maintaining streaks, earning petals, purchasing upgrades, and creating community with friends. It is also driven by the pain of not using the app and seeing your cute plants wilting. It builds on users’ hope that they will be able to successfully grow a healthy plant. Finally, users are motivated by the acceptance/approval they will receive from showing friends how well their plants are growing.
Journey Map:

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17AerdcpumtexGO7UIuL_6dIzB66T5Jmf-KekkdCa98w/edit?usp=sharing
As someone who has never managed to care for a plant in the medium term, this looks like a great thing to have!
I also love the idea of “checking in” on other people’s plants (or them on yours).
The question I had was mostly about the feasibility of the sensor and happiness level. Would these things actually map well enough with health to be a useful guide? Also, what would such sensors cost?
I think the idea of making gardening social is a great one, and an interesting way of re-invigorating the practice (I’d imagine it has declined in popularity among our generation). I think it might be useful to investigate/emphasize the ecological aspect of increasing our “green thumb”…it could be potentially a big deal towards increasing environmental awareness. This also has the potential to partner with local flower shops/community gardens towards a profitable model.
Love the digital front page. It has the style of a nature lover and highlights the best features of the app. I am a plant lover, so a plant-caring app is something I’m interested in. I think bringing friends in the process can be great and providing plant-care tips and knowledge is useful. I am a little confused about how to use the app. Do I need to take care of my visual plant in the app? It might be very tedious for the users to record their nurturing process also. Maybe focusing more on the sharing part and build a community of plant-lovers so they can share and record their plants growing.
This app seems great for those who struggle with their green thumb. I am one of those people. I would love to see this exist as it would promote a social community around plant-care taking that does not exist (that I know of). I have seem similar apps where you send in a picture of your plant and. the app identifies it and provides you with caretaking info. I believe it is called Plantifier, but there seem to be a few apps in this domain. I would recommend checking out those apps further to see if there is any ideas or technology you can pull from and innovate better. Looks great overall!
I think this is a great app to help people take care of their plants while also stay connected to their friends. A great addition to the app would be an anonymous forum or Q+A section where people can post questions or stories about plants and everybody who uses this app can help whoever is in need. This will also make it a great plant community where people share their passion for plants and there could even be plant-specific forums such as a succulents community. There could also be an Instagram-like image sharing page where people can share their best pictures of their plants to friends and the community. So many possibilities!
Your project is making plants caring a more accessible and relaxing process, and the “overall happiness” level is such a satisfying feedback system. The addition of real-life environmental data is absolutely awesome, which makes any weather change in reality a potential trigger. Also, your project reminds me of a succulent-caring app called Viridi, which has a different but also amazing visual design that you may want to look at.
It’s very beautifully designed and made, and this game seems very fun! The only part I’m sure is that the behavior of planting solely seems a bit dull. Maybe your group could combine with the HabitHealth group and also combine the healthy behaviors like drinking with planting. For example, drinking a glass of water yourself may represent watering the plant a bit.
This is a really original, novel idea! As a personal plant owner, I think this would be a really fun way to stay connected with family, and actually feel motivated to care for my plants. Someone in class recommended a chat room to get help about taking care of their plant, I also think a way to “ask a professional” to consult about questions that arise would be cool and another point of engagement. This would be great for people like me who killed a succulent once by overwatering it.