Minor Project: Tasks
Minor Project Tasksㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
Table of Contents
The semester began with Mr. Mike walking us through the Module Information Booklet (MIB) and outlining the details of our main project. Our challenge? To apply design thinking principles in solving a real-world problem, working alongside an actual industry partner. We were free to choose any brand or company, as long as our solutions aligned with our skills and areas of study.
After the briefing, we formed groups of 5–7 people from different specializations to encourage diverse perspectives. My team came together with Jessie and Pricillia from Entertainment Design, plus Nicole, Nadia, Shanzi, and myself (Yu Xuen) from UI/UX Design.
We decided to collaborate with EXPEDIO on their Yubari: Self-Watering Pot product. This first week was all about introductions, clarifying roles, and laying the groundwork for our collaboration. Nicole, as our group leader, reached out to the client via LinkedIn to establish initial contact, while the rest of us dove into researching EXPEDIO’s background, brand values, and product range to get a better feel for their vision and style.
It felt like a strong and promising start—productive, well-coordinated, and full of ideas for what’s to come.
This week, Mr. Mike shared our official client meeting schedule—our first discussion with EXPEDIO is set for 5th May 2025. Along with the schedule, we gained access to a shared Miro board and a project tracking document, which we immediately started filling with our initial research findings and task updates.
To keep things organized, each of us took on a specific area of research. My role was to focus on researching similar social media content.
It felt like the real groundwork was being laid, with everyone starting to settle into their roles and contribute to the bigger picture.
This week was a milestone for our project—on 5th May 2025, we had our first official meeting with EXPEDIO. While a few teammates couldn’t attend due to a class schedule conflict, the rest of us joined the session and took comprehensive notes on the client’s product values, brand vision, and expectations. These insights immediately started shaping our direction for branding, interaction design, and storytelling in the upcoming concept stage.
Later that Friday, our team met at Lepak for an internal discussion to review the client feedback and adjust our task assignments. Tracy continued expanding on the competitor research from Week 2, focusing on:
-
Adding price ranges for competing products.
-
Identifying the top three bestselling self-watering pots.
-
Reviewing sales performance and customer feedback.
-
Comparing brand positioning between competitors and Yubari.
-
Conducting a SWOT analysis to assess Yubari’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Through online research, we discovered that local product prices vary widely depending on size and features—generally between RM0–RM30. For best-selling insights, we found that the top three competitors are:
-
Shopee / Online Shop Products – Affordable, accessible, and highly rated with strong sales volumes.
-
IKEA Pots – Minimalist, budget-friendly, and ideal for beginners.
-
Smart Garden 3 by Click & Grow – A premium, tech-integrated option featuring automation and grow lights, catering to modern plant lovers.
To strengthen our understanding, Tracy also analyzed YouTube reviews of smart gardening products, giving us valuable perspectives on user habits and age demographics from real customer experiences.
By the end of the week, we had a much clearer picture of Yubari’s place in the market—information that will be critical as we refine its unique selling proposition (USP) in the weeks ahead.
This week, our attention turned to understanding our target users more deeply through persona development and survey distribution. As a team, we reviewed and refined our interview questions to make sure they aligned with the personas we were building. We also began shortlisting potential participants for interviews later in the research phase.
This week’s focus was split between finalizing our user personas and gaining firsthand insights into the Yubari product through a site visit. During class, Mr. Mike reviewed our initial personas and offered constructive feedback. He pointed out that our “YouTuber” persona didn’t quite match Yubari’s market direction, and suggested we shift our focus toward audiences who are more likely to purchase and engage with the product.
He also noted that while our two student personas had different planting skill levels, it made more sense to keep just one. To diversify, he recommended adding lifestyle-driven profiles—such as a work-from-anywhere (WFA) professional or a plant collector—to create a more balanced and realistic representation of potential customers. Taking this on board, we refined our personas to strike the right balance between functionality, lifestyle fit, and consumer potential.
On 23rd May 2025, Jessie, Pricillia, Nicole, and Tracy visited the Expedio Studio to meet Toru, the designer behind Yubari. The visit provided valuable, hands-on exposure to the product’s design, features, and intended user experience. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the visit as I had classes during that time.
During the visit, Toru introduced us to the Yubari self-watering pot, highlighting its three vibrant color options—pink, green, and lime. He demonstrated how the self-watering system functions and explained that while the current batch features succulents, future versions will include herbs to enhance both usability and sensory experience.
The team also had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Wong, the co-founder of Expedio, who shared the company’s backstory and vision. From this visit, it became clear that Expedio’s goal is to create a lifestyle community around Yubari, placing strong importance on visual branding, collectibility, and encouraging user-generated content.
This week, our survey surpassed 85 responses, providing us with a strong dataset to start detailed analysis. Jessie, Pricillia, and Nadia took the lead in reviewing the results, uncovering key trends in user behaviors, preferences, and feedback. Meanwhile, the rest of the team worked on updating and fine-tuning our user personas, ensuring they accurately reflected the insights gathered from the survey data.
During Week 7, our team came together to analyze the survey findings and organize the key insights for the findings section of our proposal. We divided the tasks to maximize efficiency: Nadia took charge of summarizing the overall survey results, Zhi Xuan began crafting the proposal slides, and Tracy focused on refining and updating the user personas based on our latest data.
As for me, I made sure the interview with Yi Lin, my friend was smooth and detailed all the information needed in the Miro Board, latest update for the User Personas.
Tracy reformatted our original user personas from a 3:4 layout to a 16:9 format to maintain visual consistency with our proposal slides. We also introduced new sections, including “Plant Experience” and “Motivation to Buy.” The previous motivation chart was replaced with a more relevant purchase factor matrix to better capture what drives customers.
After analyzing the survey data, we expanded our user personas from three to five by creating two new profiles—Sylvia and Adrian. While they share some traits with existing personas, their unique personality characteristics and buying motivations add more depth and diversity to our target audience segmentation.
Although there was no physical class this week because of the midterm break, Dr. Mike arranged a check-in session on Microsoft Teams to keep track of our project’s progress. During this virtual meeting, we reviewed the work completed so far, focusing especially on the problem statement, “How Might We” (HMW) questions, and overall project goals. Nicole took the lead in guiding this discussion, ensuring we stayed aligned and ready for the next steps.
During the check-in, Dr. Mike gave us valuable feedback via sticky notes on our Miro board. He emphasized the importance of refining our brand’s core message by crafting an emotional narrative—something impactful like Snickers’ positioning as a hunger and mood solution.
After the session, our team split into two sub-groups for better focus:
-
Miro Board Team: Nicole, Nadia, Tracy
-
Proposal Slides Team: Yu Xuen (me), Zhi Xuan, Jessie, Pricillia
This week, I joined the Proposal Slides Team and contributed primarily to the Brand Guidelines section. Collaborating closely with my teammates, I helped finalising our brand guidelines that includes — Typography & Colour Scheme
With the concept direction locked in, we outlined our branding strategy, which consists of four main outputs:
- Packaging Design – With QR code linking to the website (Nadia)
- Instagram Account & Mascot Design – In both 2D and 3D (Jessie, Pricillia)
- Website Mockup – Including Home and Purchase Pages (Tracy, Nicole)
- Mobile App Mockup – Featuring Plant Care Tracking UI (Zhi Xuan, Yu Xuen)
After presenting our draft proposal, we received constructive feedback from Dr. Mike, prompting us to refine our slides for better clarity, consistency, and alignment with the overall design direction. The updated slides now reflect both our original ideas and the improvements made through team collaboration.
We chose the name YuLife, blending “Yu” from Yubari with “Life” to represent a serene lifestyle centered around growth, nurturing, and emotional wellness. YuLife is designed to complement the Yubari pot by helping users monitor their plants’ health, receive weekly care reminders, and enjoy a personalized growing experience supported by AI.
The app’s main navigation consists of five core pages:
-
Home: Overview of plant status
-
Tasks: Care reminders and weekly checklists
-
Add New Plant: Setup for new plants
-
Yubari Shop: Explore accessories and add-ons
-
Account: User preferences and settings
Together, these features create a cohesive, calming plant care journey.
To establish the app’s visual identity, we developed a UI Kit and moodboard, drawing inspiration from Yubari’s signature colors—green and pink. This color palette now guides the design language across all platforms for a consistent and harmonious brand experience.
Our design goal for YuLife is to create a plant care companion that feels friendly, peaceful, and intelligent—a perfect digital counterpart to the Yubari self-watering pot.
We started with low-fidelity wireframes to map out the app’s structure and user flow. Key screens include onboarding, sign-in/sign-up, the home plant dashboard, task list, plant scanner, shop, and account pages. These wireframes helped us visualize the user journey from monitoring plant health to shopping for accessories in the Yubari store.
Currently, our team is distributing tasks based on this design framework:
-
Jessie and Pricillia are updating the mascot and brand logo colors to align with the finalized palette, ensuring brand cohesion.
-
Nicole and Tracy, who are responsible for the website, will adopt the same visual style to maintain consistency between the app and web presence.
-
Nadia is working on packaging mockups and gathering reference materials to inform the design direction.
Week 10
Once the slides were finalised, Dr. Mike assigned all groups to have a meeting with Toru to present their design proposals on 26 June 2025 (Thursday). Our group leader represented the team during the presentation, demonstrating strong communication and presentation skills. The meeting was a valuable opportunity to showcase our research, ideation, and visual direction — as well as to receive constructive feedback for further refinement moving forward.
We
received
positive
feedback
from
the
client,
who
appreciated
the
overall
effort
and
thought
our
proposed
solutions
were
well-considered.
He
specifically
mentioned
that
he
liked
the
mobile
app
idea,
acknowledging
that
most
users
today
prefer
accessing
content
via
their
phones.
From
observing
other
group
feedback,
we
learned
that
the
client
has
a
strong
preference
for
minimalist
design
styles.
He
also
complimented
our
chosen
color
palette,
noting
that
it
aligns
perfectly
with
their
brand
direction
and
what
they
were
looking
for.
With the app’s structure firmly in place, we progressed to designing high-fidelity prototypes. We finalized a soft, cheerful color scheme featuring green and pink, directly inspired by the Yubari pot’s signature hues. This color palette established a calming yet playful atmosphere throughout the app.
To reinforce brand consistency, we updated the mascot and icons with these colors, creating a cohesive visual identity. Additionally, we incorporated real plant photos within the interface to enhance authenticity and clearly communicate the app’s purpose.
One of the standout features in our mockup is the personalized plant dashboard, which greets users by name and offers daily care tips tailored to the real-time condition of their plants. The task system incorporates gamification through engaging icons and progress trackers, motivating users to water, prune, or even “walk” their plants regularly.
The Yubari Shop is fully integrated within the app, enabling users to effortlessly browse and purchase pots and accessories with just a few taps.
Together, these design choices make YuLife a warm, supportive companion that nurtures both plants and their caretakers. Our team is actively refining the UI in Figma to maintain consistency across devices as we prepare for our final presentation in Week 15.
During this week, Dr. Mike provided guidance on the structure for our final presentation deck, which should cover:
-
The Big Idea and explanation of brand values
-
User personas
-
Art direction, including various logo versions
-
User journey mapping
He also shared a rough timeline:
-
Week 13: Develop the final version and prototype
-
Week 14: Finalize and approve all visual assets
-
Week 15: Deliver the final presentation
As we moved into the final stretch of our Minor Project, our group divided specific tasks to keep everything on track for the closing weeks. Between Week 12 and Week 13, each member focused on their key responsibilities:
-
Nadia, Pricillia, and Jessie worked on mockups for Instagram posts, the Myru character, and product-related items like keychains and clips.
-
I (Noelle) took charge of designing thumbnails for our social media reels, making sure they stayed visually consistent with our overall branding.
-
Tracy and Nicole teamed up to develop the YuLife website, applying our UI kit and finalized color palette to maintain design harmony.
-
Niqo handled the customer journey map and prepared the Gantt chart to document our project timeline.
-
Meanwhile, Zhi Xuan (Shanzi) began assembling the final presentation, gathering input from everyone and weaving it together in line with Dr. Mike’s and Toru’s feedback.
With clearly defined roles and steady teamwork, we’re steadily shaping a polished, cohesive final showcase for Week 15. On my end, I made sure the content for the presentation slides are correct, to make sure the presentation goes on smoothly.
This week, Shanzi and I teamed up closely to develop the YuLife app prototype for our final presentation. While I concentrated on creating high-fidelity mockups of the app’s key screens, Noelle focused on linking these screens and interactions in Figma to simulate a seamless user experience. We carefully mapped out the user flow—from onboarding through essential features like Home, Tasks, Add New Plant, Shop, and Account—ensuring navigation felt smooth and intuitive.
To make our presentation more engaging, we brainstormed the idea of showcasing the mockups through a dynamic, ad-style video. This approach would bring the app’s core functions to life, offering our audience a vivid glimpse of the YuLife experience during the final showcase.
As Week 14 kicked off, our team shifted focus to finalising preparations for the big presentation. We polished the content flow and assigned each section based on everyone’s availability and strengths. Our aim was to deliver a clear, confident presentation within the 15-minute time limit, covering all the essential parts of our project.
We broke the script down into five main segments:
Introduction: Outlining the problem statement, solution overview, big idea, and project goals.
User Personas & Survey Insights: Sharing key findings from our interviews and survey data.
Customer Journey Map: Walking through user touchpoints, emotional highs and lows, and insights drawn from our journey map and timeline.
Art Direction: Presenting UI mockups, branding elements like typography and color palette, plus deliverables such as Instagram posts and reels.
Conclusion: Wrapping up with a strong reinforcement of our brand message and product impact.
To make sure we managed our time well, we kept shorter segments around one minute each, while giving more focus to critical sections like the customer journey and art direction. Everyone took part in refining their slides and rehearsing their parts, making sure our presentation would flow seamlessly and leave a memorable impact during Week 15.
Figure 2.41 Conclusion & Documentation of Final PresentationOn 1st August, we proudly presented our final YuBari project to the EXPEDIO team during Week 15. It was an exciting moment as we walked them through the entire journey—from our initial ideation and user research all the way to the finished app, website, and overall brand experience.
All in all, it was a fulfilling finale to weeks of dedicated teamwork. We’re proud that our design approach and storytelling truly resonated with the brand and look forward to what’s next.
Weeks 1-2
I discovered that design isn’t just about function or looks—it’s about solving problems from the user’s perspective. A key insight was the role of empathy: putting ourselves in users’ shoes to truly understand their struggles, behaviors, and experiences. This helped me move away from making snap judgments and instead blend insights from creative design, psychology, and sociology for deeper understanding.
Week 3
This week, we presented our initial Yubari research and received feedback to refine the brand identity, segment our target audiences into three groups, and deepen our competitor analysis. The discussion highlighted that it’s not enough to know who the competitors are—we also need to understand why users choose them. I realized strong branding depends on knowing both the market and user mindset. Moving forward, we focused on creating user personas grounded in real behaviors and motivations to guide design decisions.
Week 4
I learned the importance of getting timely approval for research materials, as delays here impact the entire project timeline. Once our interview questions were approved, we could start collecting data without setbacks. Early interviews gave us valuable firsthand insights and reinforced how crucial early planning and clear communication are in user-centered design projects.
Week 5
This week underscored why user personas must be based on real data, not assumptions. Guessing user behaviors without evidence leads to weak design choices. Grounding personas in survey and interview data helped us reflect true motivations, goals, and pain points. We also narrowed our audience focus, moving away from overly broad groups like international influencers, and realized good design starts with knowing who you’re really designing for.
Week 6
I saw how using the right tools—especially AI—makes data analysis faster and more insightful. Leveraging technology helped us spot patterns and user needs more efficiently. This taught me not to get bogged down by manual tasks when smarter digital solutions exist, and to embrace tech as a way to improve the quality of our findings.
Week 7
This week, I learned how to identify recurring patterns and themes from our research, which guided us in discovering key insights. Each team member shared their top findings, which we then categorized collaboratively. This helped us focus on the most relevant aspects for our project.
Week 8
During Week 8, we planned the ideation phase. I teamed up with Yu Xuen (Noelle) to design a mobile app prototype that simplifies plant care for Yubari users. We focused on three main screens—the Home, Watering, and Profile pages—using Figma. This process helped me see how digital tools can enhance product experiences and boost user engagement.
Week 9
Feedback this week showed me the value of presenting ideas logically and with the user in mind. Reordering slides improved clarity and professionalism. I also learned not to answer “How Might We” questions too early, to maintain a smooth narrative. Working on the customer journey deepened my empathy for user needs and emotions. Visual references proved essential for communicating design intent clearly, and simplifying our art direction taught me that good design is about clear, purposeful communication—not adding complexity.
Week 10
Positive client feedback boosted our confidence, especially around our mobile app concept’s accessibility. The client’s preference for minimalism reminded me that thoughtful, clean designs often communicate better than busy visuals. Recognition of our color palette choice reassured me that our design was on-brand. This motivated me to keep focusing on clarity, consistency, and user-centered design.
Week 11
We were advised to strengthen our art direction for better visual consistency and clearer alignment with the brand. It was also important to clearly visualize the full customer journey for the final presentation.
Week 12
This week taught me the value of locking down core ideas before polishing. With deadlines near, a solid direction kept the team aligned and efficient. Maintaining consistency across slides, mockups, and journey maps was crucial. Using real photos made visuals more relatable and impactful. Working in Figma on both microsite and app prototypes sharpened my skills in creating interactive, user-friendly designs. Overall, I learned that good design balances creativity with clarity and execution.
Week 13
Without formal feedback this week, I learned the importance of self-review and team accountability. It was a key moment for reflection, making final tweaks, and ensuring everything aligned with our concept and branding. Collaborating under pressure taught me how to polish details effectively. Critical review helped uncover gaps we missed earlier and boosted my confidence heading into final visual approval and presentation.
Week 14
This week reinforced that design isn’t just about visuals—it’s about telling a clear, logical story. The customer journey is more than a research tool; it connects every visual and design decision. Embedding it into our slides helped communicate our concept clearly to clients and audiences. I also learned how important it is to show progression—from persona to customer—to make our story more compelling and believable. Going forward, I’ll pay close attention to how visual elements link together to support the user experience.