Sprout
RESEARCHER | INTERVIEWER | UX/UI
About Sprout
Sprout is a self-care app prototype combined with a hologram-projection of a bonsai tree. The aim of Sprout is to motivate CBT-patients (CBT: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) during their treatment by giving them a strong feeling of personal growth through the metaphor of a bonsai tree. Going through CBT can be tough and at times it may be difficult to feel motivated to complete the challenges that are set together with the psychologist. By using Sprout the progress of the patient is represented by a hologram projection of a bonsai tree that grows bigger and stronger by each reflected challenge.
Platform: App & hologram | Role: UX-designer | Duration: 3 months | Team: 3 designers
The exhibition
We exhibited Sprout at the Department of Computer and Sciences school fair, where we presented Sprout.
The team
Evelin Szabo Persson (left)
Janette Rodriguez Snell (middle)
Linnea Gustafsson (right)
![](/s/SproutApp.png"target="_blank)
The application
Created in Figma.
The core function with the app is to reflect on challenges the user has been exposed to. When the user has saved the reflection, a button will appear with the text “Grow”. If the user tap it, the bonsai tree in the app as well as the tree in the hologram will grow
The hologram bonsai
A bonsai is known as a symbol for harmony, peace, balance and most importantly patience, due to its prolonged growing and its requiring of much care. We therefore thought it would be suitable for it to represent the growth of a CBT-patient. By cutting out three plastic planes and merging them into a prisma, the projection of an animation of a growing bonsai from a device below will display an illusion of depth.
Interviews & testing
The design team interviewed two psychologists and had continuously contact through mail with a third. We created a survey for our target audience to answer where we guaraneed anonymity. During the design process, we also tested on three persons who had been CBT-patients before.
The stylized bonsai
In order for the patient to receive an easy overview of his or her progress, it was necessary to also show a representation of the realistic hologram-bonsai in the application. The team wanted a stylized look that would work with the clean and simplistic theme on the application. I therefore started to illustrate some suggestions of a stylized bonsai in Photoshop.
Design thinking
During the design process, the team decided to highly value the user-centered approach where the needs of the target audience is well understood. By understanding the user better, the team could generate innovative solutions based on the detailed knowledge received by the research-work.
Lessons learned
Throughout the process, the team learned how much impact the question “Why?“ have in a design process. We started this project with divergence thinking and explored different possibilities for solving a problem we’ve addressed. However, during the ideate phase, we got stuck with asking ourselves a lot of “How?“ questions, which resulted in us only discussing the technical aspects of this project. For a moment, we lost track in why we were designing Sprout. As soon as we realized this, we started over and focused in what we were trying to solve with our design decisions and why this was important for our target audience to have.
Collaborated with: Linnea Gustafsson & Evelin Szabo Persson