Some design ideas

[alexbayleaf]

This evening I got chatting with shadowspar on IRC and told him some of the ideas I've had so far for the site. Here's an unedited (but fairly focused and not tooooo long) transcript. All this is open to discussion/debate of course -- it's just very early thoughts on how I'd structure things, and it definitely needs lots more work and refinement.


shadowspar joined the chat room
[10:16pm] skud: o hai!
[10:16pm] skud: may i blather my ideas at you?
[10:16pm] You are now known as Skud.
[10:16pm] shadowspar: hai!
[10:17pm] shadowspar: of course! I was just about to squeeee at you, but please take the floor first =)
[10:17pm] Skud: \o.
[10:17pm] Skud: oops
[10:17pm] Skud: \o/
[10:17pm] Skud: #enthusiasmfail
[10:17pm] Skud: ok so! the way i see it is, everyone who uses the site has a geolocation (with appropraite privacy controls of course), and one or more gardens with geolocations
[10:17pm] Skud: you start out with a default "my garden" which has the same geolocation as you
[10:17pm] Skud: then there are events
[10:18pm] Skud: sow, tend, harvest
[10:18pm] Skud: basically you log an event like "i sowed pumpkin seeds in this garden on this date"
[10:18pm] Skud: or "i pruned this tree on this date"
[10:19pm] Skud: each person's profile page will show what they've got in their garden and what theyv'e been doing
[10:19pm] Skud: but also you can search… what are people near me growing? what are people doing right now? should i be planting tomatoes yet?
[10:19pm] Skud: so i was thinking about this from a sort of data structure perspective for the first day or so after federico gave me the idea
[10:20pm] Skud: and then i was in a session at guadec on crowdfunding and i was thinking about dreamwidth and yada, and i was like OMG SEED ACCOUNTS HA HA
[10:20pm] shadowspar: *snerk*
[10:20pm] Skud: so then i thought about the whole metaphor of tending a garden and growing things to nurture us
[10:21pm] Skud: and basically making the whole style/language of the site be about that. people who admin the database would be "gardeners", etc
[10:21pm] shadowspar: =)
[10:21pm] shadowspar: it's a great parallel
[10:21pm] Skud: and, idk, i just want it to be a warm squishy lovely place full of wonderful people doing nice things
[10:22pm] Skud: my housemate emily is going to do design/UX
[10:22pm] Skud: oh and i want open APIs and open data, especially the aggregate data
[10:23pm] Skud: so that eg. the list of species/varieties of food plants and where they are grown is open data
[10:23pm] Skud: because that doesn't exist anywhere yet
[10:23pm] shadowspar: *nodnod* for sure; and I think a lot of the climate/wx/etc data that'd be useful to pull in is already open in some regions
[10:24pm] Skud: yeah
[10:24pm] Skud: we could definitely seed it with some stuff from freebase, for example
[10:24pm] Skud: the problem with climate etc is that it's not consistent worldwide
[10:24pm] Skud: like, each country's meteorological service and ag department has different stuff
[10:25pm] shadowspar: hmmm. interesting problem
[10:26pm] shadowspar: crowdsourcing that stuff seems like it'd be a huge tangent, at least at first
[10:26pm] shadowspar: at any rate, the notion of having a seed stash or doing seed swaps sounds pretty cool, imho
[10:27pm] shadowspar: same with things like low-key reminders for events
[10:28pm] shadowspar: maybe we would have remembered to find & start our zucchini this year if we'd have noticed all our friends planting <_<
[10:30pm] Skud: the crowdsourcing is easy peasy
[10:30pm] Skud: you don't need to crowdsource climate data
[10:30pm] Skud: you just ask people what they're planting
[10:31pm] Skud: assuming you have enough of them, you can then generate a planting guide
[10:31pm] Skud: select date from events where type = "sow" and crop = "tomatoes" and location = (within N km of here)
[10:31pm] Skud: then generate a histogram based on the month when people sow that crop
[10:32pm] Skud: voila! planting guide!
[10:33pm] shadowspar: v.true; nice!
[10:33pm] Skud: or you could do
[10:34pm] Skud: select * from events where location = (near here) group by type (i.e. sow/tend/harvest), crop
[10:34pm] Skud: which gets you something like:
[10:34pm] Skud: THIS MONTH:
[10:34pm] Skud: people near you are...
[10:34pm] Skud: planting tomatoes
[10:34pm] Skud: pruning apples
[10:35pm] Skud: harvesting grapes
[10:35pm] Skud: (or whatever
[10:35pm] Skud: blah that SQL is wrong, whatevs
[10:35pm] shadowspar: point's clear
[10:36pm] Skud: anyway the trick with good crowdsourcing is to get people to input data that is of benefit to them individually
[10:37pm] Skud: and aggregate it as a side effect
[10:37pm] shadowspar: *nodnod*
[10:37pm] Skud: like pinboard/delicious/etc… your own bookmarks are useful to yourself, but the aggregate is even more useful
[10:39pm] shadowspar: *nodnod* nobody (or v.few people) want to go out and measure their freaking bean plants with a ruler every day
[10:39pm] shadowspar: but stuff like "I ${verb}ed the beans today" is easy-peasy
[10:43pm] Skud: yeah
[10:43pm] Skud: i keep meaning to keep a diary of that stuff anyway so i can look back and remember what i did last year
[10:43pm] shadowspar: any other events in mind? there could be a ton of others, or variants thereof, but tbh plant/tend/harvest sounds like enough to get the ball rolling
[10:44pm] shadowspar: between that and people's locations, and a list of what's in their plots
[10:45pm] shadowspar: idk what you're thinking about forums/messaging/other social bits, but that sounds like the obvious way to scratch itches like "why are all these bugs eating my cabbage" and "anyone want to trade seeds"
[10:45pm] Skud: yeah exactly
[10:45pm] Skud: on both counts
[10:45pm] Skud: i think "use" and "share" are the other obvious events
[10:46pm] Skud: with "use" being like "i made ratatouille with my zucchini" or "i made lavender bags"
[10:46pm] Skud: and "share" being "i shared the plums from my tree with [user]" or "i have a fuckton of plums, anyone want them?"
[10:46pm] shadowspar: heh, the plant equiv of FOs; nice =)
[10:47pm] Skud: and i like ravelry's forums/groups model, where you can post discussions etc but you can also share your activity with the group
[10:47pm] Skud: so for instance imagine an "heirloom tomato lovers" group and you could share your "i harvested my tomatoes" event with them
[10:48pm] Skud: or you could share your "aphid extermination" tend event with the "pest control" group
[10:48pm] Skud: so the forum/group view would be a mix of general discussion and stuff that's been shared with the group
[10:49pm] Skud: which would be a great way to manage sharing
[10:49pm] Skud: you make a "share" event saying "i have lemons, who wants?" and then share it with your local neighbourhood group
[10:49pm] shadowspar: *nodnod*
[10:49pm] Skud: you could maybe actualy just do that using geo
[10:49pm] Skud: "share with people nearby"
[10:49pm] Skud: and specify a radius
[10:49pm] Skud: "anyone within 10km want lemons?"
[10:49pm] Skud: and it would push a message to them
[10:50pm] Skud: though you could also search for other people's shares anywhere, regardless of distance… for intance if you're looking for heirloom seeds you might accept them from just about anywhere
[10:56pm] shadowspar: I'm really curious how difficult international seed sharing is
[10:56pm] Skud: depends on where you are
[10:56pm] Skud: australia is impossible -- seeds are forbidden imports without massive quarantine drama
[10:56pm] Skud: but in europe for instance, i think it would be easy
[10:56pm] shadowspar: *nodnod* the US seems far more restrictive than Canada
[10:56pm] shadowspar: in any case, the site can cope regardless of the answers, I think
[10:57pm] Skud: yeah
[10:58pm] Skud: so yeah i think the minimum you could start with is "sow" and "harvest" events
[11:01pm] shadowspar: *nodnod*
[11:01pm] Skud: so i'm thinking of doing this in rails
[11:01pm] Skud: with which i only have very slight experience but would like to learn
[11:02pm] shadowspar: not that it's something to address off the start, but d'you think there are any up-front considerations for "outdoor garden plot" vs (eg) "container garden" vs "indoor/greenhouse" ?
[11:02pm] • shadowspar doesn't mind ruby & rails, fwiw
[11:04pm] Skud: yeah, i think there should be options on your garden(s) to say what kind it is
[11:04pm] Skud: container/compact/traditional/permaculture are the ones that occur to me
[11:04pm] Skud: with compact meaning like square foot gardening etc
[11:05pm] Skud: and you could add details like the size of your garden (sqft or m^2), type of soil, sun, etc
[11:05pm] Skud: just like how in rav you can add a whole bunch of metadata to a knitting project
[11:05pm] shadowspar: *nodnod*
[11:06pm] Skud: hmmm, definitely want to be able to share gardens and/or events with others
[11:06pm] Skud: like, my garden is shared with a housemate
[11:06pm] Skud: and we often plant things together
[11:06pm] shadowspar: without further context, it'd just seem weird initially to see that someone 50km from here was planting lemons
[11:07pm] Skud: yeah
[11:07pm] Skud: greenhouse def needs to be taken into account
[11:08pm] Skud: i don't even want to think, just yet, of the flow for something like planting tomatoes from seeds in seed trays, raising them indoors, then hardening and transplanting them outdoors
[11:08pm] shadowspar: heh, yesss
[11:08pm] Skud: maybe "transplant" is something you can do
[11:08pm] shadowspar: started/sprouted --- bunnehd =)
[11:08pm] Skud: which just moves your crop from one garden to another
[11:10pm] Skud: anyway my brain is wearing out
[11:10pm] Skud: mind if i post a transcript of this to the DW comm?
[11:11pm] shadowspar: not at all, go right ahead!
[11:11pm] Skud: thanks:)

ETA: added a little later

shadowspar: np, thanks for coming up with this and putting in so much work already =)
[11:12pm] shadowspar: -- the whole thing about the workflows is not making ppl feel like they are spending more time clicking buttons on their computer than they spend in the garden, I imagine...?
[11:12pm] shadowspar: but I really have no idea where that balance point is
[11:13pm] shadowspar: idk, depends on one's outlook, too. for some folks I'm sure it's all part of the fun
[11:13pm] shadowspar: (sorry, thinking out loud & not making complete sense.)
[11:16pm] Skud: posted
[11:16pm] Skud: yeah
[11:16pm] Skud: i think the trick is to make the basics very simple
[11:17pm] Skud: the minimum should be, "i planted X in my garden on this date"
[11:17pm] Skud: optional photo, optional notes
[11:17pm] Skud: optional metadata
[11:18pm] Skud: metadata being things like: from seed, from seedling, from cutting, etc
[11:18pm] Skud: i think honestly, transplants would work more like this
[11:19pm] Skud: garden 1: indoor seed raising garden
[11:19pm] Skud: garden 2: outdoor vegie garden
[11:19pm] Skud: sow event: planted tomatoes from seed in indoor seed raising garden
[11:19pm] Skud: (time passes)
[11:19pm] Skud: sow event: planted tomatoes from seedling in outdoor veg garden
[11:21pm] Skud: but if you weren't into massive customisation and tweaking and fiddling around, you could just do it the dumb way
[11:21pm] Skud: you have a default "my garden" when you create your account
[11:21pm] Skud: sow event: planted tomatoes from seed in my garden
[11:21pm] Skud: time passes
[11:21pm] Skud: sow event: planted tomatoes from seedling in my garden

Comments

Re: my design contribution

[alexbayleaf]

Yeah, I think it's a great idea to link each plant or crop's lifecycle into one "project" (or maybe some other name? not sure on terminology). Would definitely like to have a seed stash feature!

For reminders, I wonder whether we could do "tend" events which are "pending" meaning you need to do them in future, and when they come due it sends you a reminder email with a link to click when you've done it?

Re: my design contribution

[anatsuno]

disclaimer: I'm no gardener at all :)

But yes, I think a site like that would be even more awesome if it can generate a calendar of events/reminders when prompted. :)