Patch
Company Case Study
Tools Figma
Role UX, UI, Visual Design
A community garden is fundamentally a community building activity bringing neighbors together to steward (plan, plant, and maintain) open space in their neighborhood. Traditionally community gardens in Seattle include individual plots for which community members pay a small fee, while common areas in the garden are maintained by all plot holders.
Introduction
Most major metropolitan areas host community gardens. Seattle is recognized as a leader and is one of the largest community garden networks.
P-Patch is the name given to community gardens in Seattle that are managed by Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch Program. Members practice organic gardening techniques and plant a mix of food crops, flowers, herbs, fruiting bushes & trees.
The Numbers
P-Patch Organizations Goals
Grow Community.
Practice organic gardening.
Feed the hungry.
Pain Points
Complicated Registration
The registration process includes an online sign-up form, emails, phone calls, and snail mail for payment. There should be a system where registration, orientation, and payment can all be done with a singular platform.
Disconnected Information
Many individual P-Patch communities have their own private websites with no links to eachother. Communites should have the ability to connect with eachother and also have the ability to represent themselves as they’d like.
Problems
Community
How can gardeners better connect to facilitate a stronger community?
Education
What features can educate gardeners to improve food security?
Donate
How can Seattle help community gardeners to increase donations to food banks?
Solutions
Patch app can be a place to share advice and facilitate a way to post evens and communicate with the entire community.
The platform can be a place to share gardening advice and recipes to encourage healthful food options and choices.
The platform can be a place to track donations and inspire more people to do so.
Home
Home is where users can see the latest updates for their local P-Patch community.
Onboarding
Registration, information, and yearly membership fees in one place.
The curent method of joining a Seattle P-Patch plot filling out an online form to be on a waitlist. You can expect to wait 1 to 2, if not 3 years for a P-Patch plot!
You then recieve emails from designated garden managers, mail a paper form with a check in the mail to the City of Seattle.
Registration, application, and yearly membership fees could be organized on one digital platform. Waitlisted members would also have opportunity to learn and gain interest about there new community.
My Garden
Maximize your gardens growth.
My Garden lets the user track the growth and plants that are planted in their physical garden plot. Users can limit the timeline to each plant, month, or garden function.
Toolkit
An Almanac & Encyclopedia
The Toolkit is Patch’s form an encyclopedia to inform users about best methods to grow crops in the Pacfic Northwest. This Includes a long list of crops, tips and advice, and also food banks near your location that will accept fresh donations.
Community
Connect and share
Home is where users can see the latest updates for their local P-Patch community. Here they can view upcoming volunteering events, recipes posted from fellow gardeners, and other notifications about your own phyiscal garden.
Process
Seattle Website Architecture and Experience.
Get informed and sign up.
To get an idea of how the registration process for a P-Patch garden works, I thought I’d get my own garden plot. I thoroughly broke down the websites architecture to fully understand their goals.
