UX Research on Lawncare Management Software

Conducting research in conjunction with GravityDrive to uncover lawn care business owners’ operational pain points and define software features to better support their workflows.

Experience Studio

Journey Mapping

Personas

CONTEXT

Class Project

ROLE

Project Manager, UX Researcher

TOOLS

Figjam, Excel

DURATION

August-December 2025

Throughout this research project, I discovered how essential research backed design truly is. Over the course of this project, I was able to better understand how to conduct user research and all the methods that go into it. I bettered my people skills all while gathering data that would help advance our project.

My Contributions

PARTICIPANT MANAGEMENT, JOURNEY MAPPING, PRIMARY RESEARCH, PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Participant Management

As part of our primary research, we had to secure observations and interviews with local lawncare companies. I was in charge of finding and reaching out to them. As part of this process, I had to keep a detailed spreadsheet with which companies we contacted by email, by phone, and which ones we needed to call again. I was also the one actually talking to the companies and securing interviews. This was very challenging as I personally called over 70 companies, but only a few of them got back to us and were willing to participate.

Journey Mapping & Personas

I assisted in the creation of our journey maps and personas, including our proposed recommendations. These allowed us to understand our users and their pain points and move forward with our reccomendations.

Primary Research

A major part of this project was primary research. I personally conducted one interview and one observation of a local lawncare company. This data allowed us to more fully understand what being a lawncare busienss owner is actually like.

Project Management

We had weekly stand-up meetings with our sponsor, GravityDrive. I led many of these meetings to update our sponsors on our research progress. I also sent Teams messages in our research channel with progess and updates throughout the week.

The Problem

GravityDrive is a UX consulting firm focused on user research, design, strategy, and evaluation. They collaborate with clients of all sizes to create thoughtful and effective digital experiences. For this project, the firm aims to fit a user need by creating a platform to streamline project management for landcare companies. Currently, many in the landcare industry depend on a mix of disconnected tools to handle daily operations, making it difficult to maintain a clear, real-time understanding of their workflow.

In this project, we focused on doing the research so that in the future, they can make research-backed design decisions. Our goal was to idetify the key user groups, how they interact, and their key pain points to build upon for feature reccomendations.

The Solution

a research-backed foundation for a centralized platform that streamlines workflows and improves real-time visibility.

Business Roles

Crew:

Execute the work on the ground, from landscape to maintenance tasks. Their efficiency, productivity, and communication are essential to the project.

Manager:

Oversee day-to-day operations, coordinate schedules, allocate resources, and ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget. They rely on visibility across all workflows to keep operations running smoothly.

Sales:

Generate business opportunities, build and maintain client relationships, and provide accurate estimates for services. Their performance directly impacts revenue flow and long-term customer satisfaction.

Our Primary Users

Overseeing <10-people operations, handling most of the work themselves (all three roles)

Overseeing 10-40-people business with specific teams for operational tasks, mostly focusing on management.

Key Insights From the Research

Six core themes emerged consistently, reflecting both challenges and opportunities for the platform:

Fragmented Tools: Most operations rely on a patchwork of tools (spreadsheets, apps) leading to duplicate work, communication breakdowns, and inefficiencies.
Manager Overload: Managers act as the "single point of truth," resulting in heavy coordination load, delays, and frequent context switching between crew and sales teams.
Data Inaccessibility: Critical project and resource data is often scattered or outdated, making tasks like estimation and scheduling more difficult.
Scalability Issues: Workflow complexity increases significantly with company size, requiring a platform that supports both small and mid-sized distributed teams.
Platform Shortfalls: Existing solutions often prioritize features over usability, lack scalability, or fail to adapt to the unpredictable nature of landcare work.
Crew Needs: On-site crews prioritize minimal disruption and clear expectations; tools must be intuitive and avoid adding communication burdens.

Our Feature Recommendations

The following five features are research-backed opportunities designed to address the core user needs of fragmented tools, manager overload, and data inaccessibility.

The Process

1. Secondary research

Understanding the Problem Space

Our Goal: Develop a clear picture of the key roles, workflows, and relationships within the landcare industry, so we can identify who to focus on for deeper investigation in the next phase.

Desk Research: We reviewed previous teams information and also looked in to different industry contacts to broaden our understanding of the lawncare field.
Interaction Mapping: We visualized how the key roles (manager, sales, crew) might interact and exchange information with one another during projects.

Our Goal: Develop a clear picture of the key roles, workflows, and relationships within the landcare industry, so we can identify who to focus on for deeper investigation in the next phase.

Desk Research: We reviewed previous teams information and also looked in to different industry contacts to broaden our understanding of the lawncare field.
Interaction Mapping: We visualized how the key roles (manager, sales, crew) might interact and exchange information with one another during projects.

Key Findings:

In this phase we were able to identify the three key roles in a landcare project: Sales, Crew, and Manager. We also gained knowledge on what information actually matters to each role and what current softwares and challenges exist.

Key Findings:

2. Primary research

Deepening Understanding With Real Users

Our Goal: To understand the daily workflows, pain points, and tools used by key roles in the landcare industry and to chart the comprehensive journey for landcare workers, including their daily operations, tools, interactions with other roles, and opportunities for improvement

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

On-site Observations of Crew Workers: We traveled to a job site in order to observe how the crew communicate, work and execute tasks in their natural setting.
Business Owner Interviews: We conducted three virtual interviews with business owners and managers to learn about their day-to-day responsibilities, decision-making processes, and how they interact with project management tools and systems. This allowed us a first hand perspective on what it is like to be a lawncare business owner.

DATA ANALYSIS METHODS

Affinity Diagramming: After conducting our interviews, our team transferred our notes into a Figjam board, where we were able to sort the information into categories and then developed each category with more in-depth analysis.
Tabular Analysis: Using Excel, we oraganized our data in a table to be easily scannable and readable, allowing us to interpret trends and insights more clearly.

VISUALIZING OUR INSIGHTS

Personas: We created two personas, one for the small business owner and one for the medium business owner. We referenced our previous research to create our personas, focusing on the users’ motivations, needs, pain points, quotes, contexts, and more.
User Journey Mapping: We created our journey maps for both users to allow us to discover their day-to-day workflows and painpoints in real time.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

On-site Observations of Crew Workers: We traveled to a job site in order to observe how the crew communicate, work and execute tasks in their natural setting.
Business Owner Interviews: We conducted three virtual interviews with business owners and managers to learn about their day-to-day responsibilities, decision-making processes, and how they interact with project management tools and systems. This allowed us a first hand perspective on what it is like to be a lawncare business owner.

DATA ANALYSIS METHODS

Affinity Diagramming: After conducting our interviews, our team transferred our notes into a Figjam board, where we were able to sort the information into categories and then developed each category with more in-depth analysis.
Tabular Analysis: Using Excel, we oraganized our data in a table to be easily scannable and readable, allowing us to interpret trends and insights more clearly.

VISUALIZING OUR INSIGHTS

Personas: We created two personas, one for the small business owner and one for the medium business owner. We referenced our previous research to create our personas, focusing on the users’ motivations, needs, pain points, quotes, contexts, and more.
User Journey Mapping: We created our journey maps for both users to allow us to discover their day-to-day workflows and painpoints in real time.

Key Findings:

We identified in this phase that the business owner should be our main scope, as they would be interacting with the platform most commonly. We also completed and identified both our business owners pain points throughout the whole operation cycle.

Key Findings:

3. MOVING FORWARD

Identifying Opportunity Spaces for a Future Platform

Our Goal: Provide feature recommendations for the future platform that address unmet needs, pain points, and support operational efficiency for our users.

Feature Research: Understand potential feature options so that we could move forward in generating reccomendations.
Competitive/Comparative Analysis: Analyze softwares determined in primary research to see what features and working and which ones are not.
Impact-Effort Matrix: Categorize and streamline our reccomendation handoff by sorting all potential reccomendations into a matrix.

Our Goal: Provide feature recommendations for the future platform that address unmet needs, pain points, and support operational efficiency for our users.

Feature Research: Understand potential feature options so that we could move forward in generating reccomendations.
Competitive/Comparative Analysis: Analyze softwares determined in primary research to see what features and working and which ones are not.
Impact-Effort Matrix: Categorize and streamline our reccomendation handoff by sorting all potential reccomendations into a matrix.

Key Findings:

From this phase, we developed a list of all key reccomendations for small and medium-sized businesses and created a key reccomendations list that addresses pain points from both business owners.

Key Findings:

From this phase, we developed a list of all key reccomendations for small and medium-sized businesses and created a key reccomendations list that addresses pain points from both business owners.

4. transition

Handoff to Sponsor

Our Goal: Provide a seamless and efficient transition not only to our sponsors but also to the design team proceeding us.

Throughout this project, we faced a few limitations: Limited Access to Different Roles and Companies, Lack of observational data for environmental office contexts, and Time and Project Scope.

Our Goal: Provide a seamless and efficient transition not only to our sponsors but also to the design team proceeding us.

Throughout this project, we faced a few limitations: Limited Access to Different Roles and Companies, Lack of observational data for environmental office contexts, and Time and Project Scope.

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