Sustainability Victoria: Grow it & cook it app
I created a mobile app prototype for Sustainability Victoria to reconnect young Australians with food production. My solution centred on a ‘virtual garden’ – an interactive feature that motivates users by showing how their plants will look in the future, while helping them plan meals from their upcoming harvests.
CLIENT
Student Project
DELIVERABLES
App prototype
YEAR
2024
SCOPE
Entirety of project
Process
Research
Primary research included five user interviews and a survey targeting 18–24-year-olds. Key findings showed they wanted to grow their own food but lacked knowledge, motivation, and felt the process was too slow and boring.
Ideation
Following my research I created user personas, which I used to created user storyboards to fully understand the problems I needed to solve.
Based on my research and storyboarding, I explored several directions before landing on the idea of a virtual garden that grows in sync with real plants, but crucially can be sped up, giving users a visual preview of their garden and produce alongside personalised recipe suggestions based on what will be ready.
Prototyping & Testing
I developed sketches and wireframes before producing an interactive mid-fidelity prototype. User testing informed refinements to navigation and progress visualisation, leading to the final high-fidelity prototype with a friendly, approachable UI.
Outcome
My prototype directly meets the brief – reconnecting Australians with their food production. Through research, I identified that my core user group of young people (18–24) were interested in growing their own food but found the process too slow, boring, and demotivating. In response, I developed the unique concept of a virtual garden as a way to make the growing process more engaging, interactive, and rewarding.
Virtual garden
My core concept, developed directly from research insights, replaces the long, slow wait of traditional gardening with a motivational visualisation tool. The virtual garden allows users to see their plants’ growth weeks or even months ahead, helping them stay engaged and plan future meals.
Harvest & recipe recommendations
When it’s time to ‘pick’ crops in the real world, users can harvest their virtual garden alongside it. The app then suggests tailored recipes based on the produce – for example, carrots, peas, parsley, and potatoes might recommend a roast meal, complete with step-by-step cooking instructions.
Growth & Care Guidance
To ensure real plants thrive, the app provides stage-by-stage growing and care instructions, broken down into simple to-do lists. This keeps plant maintenance manageable and prevents common beginner mistakes.
By addressing the main problems for my target audience – lack of knowledge, low motivation, and a perception that gardening is boring – this prototype turns growing your own food into an accessible, exciting, and rewarding experience, fulfilling both the project brief and user needs.
