Adoptability
- What are the considerations that will affect peoples’ decisions about whether to adopt and use your design idea.
- Are there potential barriers that will slow down adoption, or that you’ll need to overcome.
- What aspects of the existing situation will need to change?
- The fact that you need one for every plant, which is why it will come in a pack.
Pricing Model
- What’s the pricing model for your idea?
- Is there an upfront cost? Or a subscription cost?
- Are there any rebates or other financial incentives that will help lower the cost and reward the behavior?
- This is an upfront cost, you just have to buy the water meter there is no subscription for the app. To get the product out, a discount or incentive could be offered on a new plant when you buy one.
Sustainability Impact
- How does your design idea improve sustainability?
- How big is the problem now? What’s the baseline that you’ll compare your idea to?
- What delta will this make? How can you quantify or measure the impact of your design idea? And how big a difference could your design idea make?
- The idea improves sustainability by possibly conserving water and preventing plants from dying due to improper amounts of water. I will measure success by the amount of users on the app and the amount sold. Are plants having a higher survival rate?
Competitive Advantage
- What else is available to your users now? What options do they have?
- Are there other products or services that promise similar results?
- How do you compare to them?
- Other water meters are bulky and are unable to constantly monitor the soil moisture level. They have to be taken out of the soil. Of the few that connect to an app, they are very expensive.
Use of Design Thinking / Human-Centeredness
- How does this design idea address the essential need identified in your POV statement?
- How did your design idea evolve based on the steps in the design thinking process? (Observing > Interviewing > Defining a POV > Ideating > Prototyping > Testing > Interating)
- Out of my interviews most people admitted that they are not very good at consistently watering their plants, so this device can help them to remember. Also, in my observing I saw an employee watering plants for a long time, possibly leading to a waste of water, and plants being watered that did not need to be.
What’s the Roadmap?
- Is there an path of future development that could evolve from and extend your design idea?
- How could your design idea grow?
- The idea could possible grow to help with irrigation systems or be implemented on a larger scale in places with much more landscaping to take care of (such as Stanford)
Post-it Brainstorming
First draft of elevator pitch
Do you often forget to water your plants?
Unfortunately this is a common problem, with plants withering away in homes and gardens across the world.
This is where the Smart Soil Meter comes in. This device ensures your plants are getting the proper care and the correct amount of water to help them to grow and live a long life.
New technology allows for the Smart Soil Meter to have a sleek design, in order to not take away from the beauty of your plants. It also stays in the soil, unlike other meters which must be removed after use, giving you the most updated information on the state of your plants at all times. It guarantees that you will never forget to water again as the connected app sends notifications whenever the soil is getting dry.
The customizability of the app also ensures that your plant is getting the proper care and amount of water for its specific needs.
No subscription is necessary to enjoy the benefits of the app, all you need to do is to purchase the Smart Soil Meter and connect it to your phone.
In the future this product could be utilized on a larger scale to help with landscaping of large campuses such as Stanford.
Improve your plant care routine by trying out some Smart Soil Meters.