Ninewells Community Garden
Ninewells Community Garden sits behind Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, providing a calm green space for patients, visitors, students and staff. The garden also hosts events, including cooking classes and art workshops.
In 2026, I became a volunteer facilitator at the garden. Following a discussion with the permanent facilitators, I chose to design an app for the garden as my Google UX Design Certificate project.
As of summer 2026, this project is ongoing.
User Research
I began by gathering information and experiences from people who would be potential users of this app. I ran a survey to capture information from people at Ninewells that I wouldn't usually cross paths with, as well as conducting face-to-face interviews with volunteers.
Visual Research
I taught a drawing workshop at the Garden, and used my drawings from these as visual research. All the plant material used in the workshop was collected from the Garden itself. I also ran a gelli printmaking workshop, again using plant material from the Garden.
The elements that kept recurring in my visual research were large, distinct leaf shapes, flower shapes, and vivid colour. There was a particular, almost luminous quality of colour in some of the flowers that I wanted to capture.
From Paper to Prototype
