need help!!!

16 years ago

Hello there. Not exactly your typical gardening posts on this forum, but we still want your assistance :)

We are students in the computer science department at SMU attempting to design a gardening assistant system that allows gardeners to monitor factors affecting plantsÂ¡Â¯ growth such as humidity, water, temperature, light intensity and so forth. However, before we design anything; we have to determine what the users require from us. This survey will address some of the inquiries we have for potential users. Your participation in this survey is voluntary and your identity will remain anonymous.

Q. How experienced do you consider yourself in the field of gardening and plant care?

A.

Q. If we were to develop a monitoring system as described above, which do you prefer? Having a new system that covers everything (including new factors not monitored before) or getting an add-on that is compatible with old existing systems?

A.

Q. Currently, we are considering designing a mechanism that detects possible fungal infections before they occur. From a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the most important, and 10 being the least important), how important would you consider this feature?

A.

Q. Another feature weÂ¡Â¯re thinking of designing is an electronic manager that controls all any windows in the gardening environment by collecting data from photosensitive sensors. If the user desires to keep the place warm during the night (for instance), he could customize the program to close the windows when the sunsets down. From a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the most important, and 10 being the least important), how valuable would you consider this feature?

A.

Q. Finally, one of the features weÂ¡Â¯re considering adding is a plant encyclopedia as a quick reference for gardeners. Do you consider this feature useful for you? If yes, please rate its importance to you from 1 to 10 (1= most important, 1 = least important)

A.

Q. Is there any feature you would like to see added? If yes, using the previous 1-10 scale; please rate its importance.

A.

Q. What would you think is a reasonable price for such a system?

A.

Those are all the questions we have. Thank you for your participation!

Have a good day!

Comments (2)

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
16 years ago
Though I've not heard of a device that detects fungal disorders before they exist (?), all of the other items that you've mentioned already exist.
vetivert8
16 years ago
Who did you see as a customer for this product? Multi-glasshouse commercial enterprise? Big show garden doing public tours, weddings, conferences? Fervent specialist gardener eg orchid grower, begonia fan? Keen indoor plant person with a conservatory? Hydroponics, or in-ground? Field production?

The bloke on the air-conditioned tractor is going to have different information needs from me out there with my little weeding fork however experienced we both might be.

FWIW - being all things to all people = marketing confusion. Suggest you survey what's currently available and see how you can tune what you're doing to truly meet the needs of a particular group eg wine grape growers(!) - from whence, if your product has met their needs with superlative performance, it might well cross the chasm into a main stream. If not, you still have a broad group of happy clients and customers.
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