The Sentiment of Flowers website
The Sentiment of Flowers Growing and Gifting Kit
Industry
Floral industry / fresh cut flowers
Project Overview
"The Sentiment of Flowers" explores the enduring tradition of flower giving and its emotional significance in contemporary urban life. This project aimed to blend the historical practice with modern digital experiences, enhancing the way people connect through flowers.
Project Type
UX / end to end project
Methodologies used
~ Desk research
~ Primary research
~ Auto-ethnography
~ Participant observation
~ In-depth interview
~ Persona mapping
~ Co-creation workshop
~ Research wall
Project Motivation
The project was inspired by the intrinsic cultural value of flower giving, a practice that has transcended centuries and cultures to convey emotions and strengthen social bonds. It seeks to rejuvenate this tradition by leveraging User Experience (UX) design principles to create a meaningful and impactful interaction in today's fast-paced digital world.
targeted audience
With this project, I aim to engage young adults aged 18-35 of all genders living in London. My research indicates that the tradition of giving fresh-cut flowers is gradually becoming less popular and is predominantly maintained by older generations. The goal is to rejuvenate this practice among the younger demographic.
User persona mapped out
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Historical Context / Desk Research
“For more than 5000 years, people have cultivated flowers although there is no known reward for this costly behavior.” ( HavilandJones et al., 2005, p.1).
The tradition of giving flowers was particularly significant and highly valued during the 19th century Victorian era. During this time, floriography books emerged as a means of communication within a society governed by strict etiquette regarding what was deemed appropriate to say out loud. These books provided a coded language through which people could convey messages by arranging specific flowers into bouquets for the intended recipient.
Flower giving has always served as a universal language of emotion and sentiment, used across various cultures to celebrate, commemorate, and express feelings. My desk research proved receiving flowers evokes immediate happiness, promotes long-term positive moods, and strengthens intimate connections between individuals.
Primary Research
I conducted surveys and interviews across diverse demographics to understand current behaviors, preferences, and emotional responses related to flower giving.
~ Auto-ethnography: Receiving fresh-cut flowers significantly improved my mood and deepened my relationships with the givers. The emotional impact varied; unexpected flowers created more memorable experiences and strengthened bonds.
~ Participant observation: At Columbia Road Flower Market, I observed the joy flowers brought to buyers, reinforcing the sentiment that flower giving brings happiness and remains a valuable tradition.
~ In-depth interview: I interviewed Nathan, a former flower delivery person, who initially found flower giving "boring" and "useless". However, he noted a change in his perspective as he began to take unsold flowers home. Consistent with the findings of Haviland-Jones et al. (2005), he expressed that the more flowers he received, the happier he felt, never growing tired of them.
~ Co-creation workshop: I prefer co-creation workshops for methods like persona mapping as they provide varied perspectives on the same problem. For this project, I collaborated with four individuals from my focus group (young adults aged 18-35 of all genders living in London) to create five user journeys focused on young people who chose not to buy flowers and explored their reasons. The findings highlighted that the value of fresh-cut flowers has been underestimated among young people. The practice, which has the potential to enhance mental health, strengthen relationships, and foster more compassionate societies, is often overlooked as a ‘perishable luxury.’.
Columbia road flower market
Columbia road flower market
Flower gifting behvaviour research
Fresh cut flower characteristics
Connecting meanings to flowers
Notes from interviews
ideation
Having analyzed my users, their everyday behaviors, and their approach to flower giving, I determined that an informative and interactive website was appropriate for my target audience. However, I realized the need for an element that would inspire them to give fresh-cut flowers in the real, physical world. Given the nature of flower giving as a physical interaction, I decided to include a tangible component in the solution.
Reflecting on my audience's values, I created a kit box designed to facilitate the growth and gifting of fresh-cut flowers. This kit provides both the giver and the recipient the opportunity to participate in the flower's life cycle, from growth to giving, thus restoring some of the traditional sentimental values of flower giving. The project integrates both offline and online elements, offering users a unique and meaningful experience, and promotes fresh-cut flower giving as a sustainable practice—all qualities appreciated by my target audience.
The physical solution complements the website, which includes a page linking the two elements. Users can order seeds for the flowers they select through an interactive game on the website.
The visuals for the project were inspired by Victorian floriography books and created using AI, bridging the gap between traditional and modern elements to produce something new while honoring the past.
The Sentiment of Flowers Growing and Gifting kit box prototypes
#1 Prototype done from a gift bag
#2 Prototype functionalities defined
#3 Prototype incorporating laser cutting
Final outcomes of the kit box
Labels for growing flowers & bouquets
Flower plant label
Assembled flower bouquet; using kit boc
The Sentiment of Flowers Website
Mockup
Homepage / Introduction page
Bouquet making station (picking seeds & meaning)
Odering a personalized kit box
Odering a personalized kit box
"Garden" of flowers and their floriography meanings
reflection
The Sentiment of Flowers is a project that revives the core values of fresh cut flower giving and refashions the traditional experience into a more suitable one for young people (18-35) based in London. It does so with its two elements: online interactive website and a physical Sentiment of Flowers, grow and give kit box (available for users to get via the website). While the websites introduces its users to the nowadays forgotten, but still powerful symbolic meanings of fresh cut flowers, the kit box gives them everything to grow their own flowers and assemble them by their symbolic meanings in a special, genuinely crafted bouquet, which is then given to a person of their choice.
Documented in this paper, other objectives the project fulfills with its design include: showing giving fresh-cut flowers is suitable in non-occasional situations, finding a sustainable and environmentally considerate solution to continue fresh cut flower giving without supporting the mass industry, and lastly, showing the values of fresh cut flower giving lie in the emotions and feelings, that can be experiences by all no matter of gender, culture or any other background, and is shared between the giver and receiver of fresh cut flowers.
A photo from a final showcase
