The Problem
Watering your lawn with the sprinkler systems is often "Set and Forget." This is fine until a rainstorm happens. Then using your sprinkler during the rainstorm is redundant and wastes water without adding a benefit to Utah lawns.
With Utah in a drought and among the driest states in America, water conservation should be top of mind for all Utah residents. Utahns could save 3,000 gallons of water per household if they turned off their sprinklers before a rainstorm, to prevent wasteful "double watering."
User Pain Points
1. Remembering the Sprinklers. Our lives are buys and it is difficult to remember something like our automatic sprinkling systems. The whole idea of them being automatic is that we don't have to worry about turning them on and off for us. In order to save water we need to bring our water usage back into our attention.
2. Watching the Weather. Watching the weather in advance is not something all Utahns do every day. In order to save water it is important to know before a storm arrives that you should shut off your sprinkler system.
3. Right Time, Right Place. Without complete control of your sprinklers with a Smart Watering system, people need to be reminded to take action when in the right conditions to act. That means a reminder in the middle of the day at work, or a reminder while out away from the home at night is not helpful. People need to be reminded while close to their systems to take immediate action.
The Plan
The idea is to deliver a notification on a persons phone to shut off the sprinklers when rain is expected and they are arriving home. This would allow people to go and adjust their sprinklers in the moment. It would then after the wet weather has left remind them to turn their sprinklers back on so they can resume the recommended watering amounts.
Website Site Map
4 Wire Frame sketches of Weather App Options
4 Wire Frame sketches of Weather App in Vertical Table Mode
Wire frames for the app showing the initial set up process
Usability Testing
3 out of 5 participants wanted more context about the weather.
2 out of 5 participants wanted more flexibility on how they were notified
3 out of 5 participants wanted updated watering recommendations
Changes were added to show the daily high and low temperature. A weekly watering guide was also included to give watering recommendations based on your county and by the type of sprinklers you use.
Before: Watering Guide Wasn't Included in the Wire Frame Prototype. After: A watering guide was included using recommendations from conservewater.utah.gov
After addressing the issues in the usability study I moved forward and developed the high-fidelity version of the app. I made a basic brand to fit the brand for the time being, including the name Wawa.
Images of the flow of the weather app.
After the mobile version was completed I adapted the app into both a web version and a tablet versions.
Three versions of the app displayed on a laptop, a tablet and on a mobile device.
Next Steps
The next steps I would carry out would be to test out all versions again to see what the the next issues need to be addressed. I know there are other issues that I would like to address but I would need to make a list of known issues and then assign them a priority level to determine what I would take on next, and if I should move forward or refine more.