AI-powered plant exchange app concept for a sustainable community

A community app concept for plant lovers to swap cuttings and gift plants nearby, with AI photo recognition to simplify and fasten the whole process.

Pflanzen Kischde app showing a plant offer listing with photo, species details, and exchange type

Client: University Project
My Role: UX Designer
Timeline: 6 months

The Problem

Plant lovers regularly end up with more cuttings, seedlings, and surplus plants than they can use. The intention to pass them on to someone who would appreciate them is there, but the effort of listing, describing, and coordinating an exchange is usually not worth it. The result is that perfectly good plants end up in the bin, not because nobody wanted them, but because the barrier to sharing was just too high.

The Solution

Pflanzen Kischde removes that barrier. AI-powered photo recognition pre-fills plant details from a single photo, and a four-step listing wizard handles everything else. A local feed shows nearby listings by category and distance so that finding something is just as easy as giving something away. The business model was designed from the start to match the sustainable ethos of the product, targeted advertising through garden retail partnerships, and affiliate links as the primary revenue streams.

Who I worked with

UX Researcher
Marketing Strategist
Social Media Manager
Project Manager

My Contribution

What I worked on

A market analysis was conducted to understand the product requirements of a successful and sustainable sharing app. Uncovering the preference for gifting over discarding as the core product opportunity.
The full Pflanzen Kischde concept was developed, including the AI photo recognition flow, the listing wizard, the local feed, and all key user flows, brought to life as a high-fidelity prototype in Figma.
A business model strategy and media kit were created covering donation-based funding, advertising partnerships with garden retailers, and affiliate link structures for plant care products.

Process

My approach

Market analysis

The project started with a broader question about sustainable behaviour and what actually motivates people to act on it. A market analysis looked into the reasons of secondhand goods, gifting, and sharing across different categories. One finding stood out clearly: before people throw something away, the strong preference is to give it to someone who would use it. The obstacle is almost never willingness, it is effort. When sharing costs too much time or requires too many steps, it simply does not happen. That insight set the direction for the concept.

Competitor analysis comparing existing plant sharing and secondhand apps across key criteria

Concept development

The design challenge was making the experience genuinely low-effort on both sides of an exchange. For the person listing a plant, an AI-powered photo recognition flow was designed to pre-fill species information, care attributes, and suggested details automatically from a single photo taken in the app. A four-step wizard guides the user through the process. For the person browsing, a local home screen surfaces nearby listings by plant category and distance. All flows were prototyped in high fidelity in Figma, covering onboarding, listing creation, browsing, and the exchange process.

Pflanzen Kischde app showing a plant offer listing with AI-filled species details and exchange type

Business model and media kit

A business model strategy was developed alongside the design work. Three revenue streams were mapped out: voluntary user donations, banner advertising through partnerships with garden retailers using Dehner as a reference case, and affiliate links tied to plant care products and accessories. A media kit was put together to present the concept and its commercial potential to partners and sponsors, giving the product a credible pitch document beyond the prototype itself.