Much has been said about the benefits of living "greener," but few people take significant action to achieve that. Our app is intended to help people increase awareness about water usage and to motivate change accordingly. We've created a gamified water-use and water-saving tracking app, where users can log specific water-saving actions to accumulate "drops" that they can use to water a plant or purchase new plants and grow their garden. Ultimately, users will be able to learn about water-saving tactics, log their actions, tend their expanding garden, and view the tasks and gardens of their friends.
Explore the Prototype View PDF WriteupComplete Actions (easy)
Users can complete daily (ex. "take a 5-minute shower") or longterm (ex. "install a low-flow toilet") water-saving actions to accumulate drops.
Tend to Garden (medium)
Users can water their plant to keep it healthy and help it grow, or purchase more plants using accumulated drops.
Customize Experience (complex)
Users can change their plants' names and colors, purchase additional plants to expand their garden, or connect social media accounts to further create a unique app experience.
Customization
Users cannot name or otherwise customize the plant. In the final version the plant and background will be customizable. Users can view but not purchase other plants. In the final version users can use accumulated drops to purchase additional plants, which can also be similarly customized.
Navigation Sidebar
Can slide bar open and closed but most links do not work yet. The checklist link should work. User information hard coded in.
Plant Screen
Watering can appears but is not functional yet. Customization button is nonfunctional (see above). Health and statistics will show changes in health of plant and more information about its growth.
Action Checklist
Users can view active, possible, or completed tasks but cannot check them off. Tasks will remain on the list they are on currently. In the final implementation when checked off, an action will migrate to the completed task list; when selected an action will migrate from the "other tasks" list to the "my tasks" list. Users know how an action would affect drop totals, but cannot actually mark as completed and see that change. Ultimately the daily drop count will decrease when the plant is watered and the overall drop count will decrease when a plant is purchased. Additionally, logging a water-saving task will add drops to both of these counts.
Social
This element is completely absent from this prototype since we weren't sure how to accurately represent it using the tools available in Proto.io. It will allow users to connect existing social media (Google+ and Facebook) to their Drop account and connect with friends who use Drop. They can also search for users directly. Once connected, users can view other users' daily and accumulated drop totals and see which plants they care for, and how healthy and grown those plants are. This will add a competitive and group-oriented element to the app, increasing the utility of the gamification.
Operating Instructions
To open the prototype, simply navigate to the link above. Note that the tasks are constrained by the limitations of this implementation, as delineated explicitly below. In general, all data in this prototype is hard-coded rather than responding to input from the user. Ultimately users will be able to tally water-saving tasks, care for their plant, upgrade to other plants, customize appearance features, and engage with other users and their plants via social media. No social media integration has been implemented in this prototype.