UX case study: onboarding redesign for a plant & botanical shop

The approach

Slow Roots came to me with an onboarding that asked for plant names and shipment dates. It worked, but it was transactional — a form, not a beginning. Nothing in it made someone feel like a plant parent. So I rebuilt the flow around a companion instead of a record. Screen 1, the splash, states the app's value up front — "No more guessing. No more guilt" — so the aha moment lands before any input is requested. The user knows what they're getting before they give anything. From the QR scan and connection (Screens 2–3), the user goes straight to meeting their companion on Screen 4, then a personality test on Screen 5 and naming on Screen 6. Those steps are the investment (Eyal — Hooked): the user has already spent money and time on a real plant, so I ask them to name it, choose personality traits, and place it in their home. Each micro-decision stores value in the app that only exists if they return — Clara's personalized profile, her synced climate, her chosen care moment. The more they configure, the harder it is to leave. Screen 7 asks for location permission, and Screen 10 asks the user to attach care to a moment they already have — morning coffee, arriving home from work. That's the implicit prompt (Growth.Design — B=MAP): the notification doesn't say "water Clara" in the abstract, it says "Clara could use a drink — right on time with your morning coffee." The coffee becomes the trigger, not the app. No external reminder needed — the habit does the work. The pride beat is deliberately staged (Heath — The Power of Moments): the loading ceremony on Screen 8 builds anticipation with rotating care tips while a progress ring fills, the clan welcome on Screen 9 shows existing companions applauding the new arrival, and the companion reveal on Screen 11 is the emotional peak — "Monty is ready to grow with you." These aren't generic achievements. Each recognition moment celebrates exactly what the user just did: configured a living thing, joined a garden, became a plant parent. Throughout, the aesthetic handles sensation (Growth.Design — B=MAP): full-bleed monstera photography on the splash, dark moody greens on the ceremony screens, care tips that speak in tactile language — "prefers soil to dry out between waterings", "morning light is gentler than afternoon." The app feels like touching earth and watching something grow, not like receiving a notification. It smells like a plant shop, not like a SaaS product. Prototype: https://move-dairy-82032949.figma.site

The screens

The brief

Slow Roots — Plant & Botanical Shop · Plant care reminder app onboarding for a niche plant shop's customers

The onboarding asks for plant names and shipment dates. It's transactional. There's no plant parent identity being built.

Objective: Design an onboarding that turns new customers into plant parents — sensory triggers, pride moments, gentle implicit prompts tied to weather.

What the client already had

The first version their own LLM produced — the thing this redesign had to beat.

The behaviour design behind it