The UX Rabbit Hole: The Struggles, Learning, and Journey of Weed Garden
Building Weed Garden taught us that UX goes beyond design—it's about creating a seamless, accessible experience. From tough feedback challenges to CSS struggles (thank you, Tailwind!), each step has been a learning opportunity. We're committed to improving and always eager for your input!
When we started building Weed Garden, we knew UX (User Experience) would be a key pillar of success, but we didn’t anticipate just how deep the rabbit hole would go. After hours of intense work, it’s become clear that UX is hard. And no, it’s not just about making things look pretty—it’s about creating a seamless, intuitive experience across desktop, mobile, and ensuring accessibility, all while using the right tech stack to make it run smoothly.
User Feedback: An Ongoing Process
Getting user feedback has always been central to how we evolve Weed Garden. We’ve received great feedback in the past that helped shape early versions of the platform, but recently, things took a nosedive. This week, we put out two big efforts to gather insights—a survey sent to our user group and a boosted Facebook post. Result? Zero responses. Ouch.
It’s a bit of a gut punch, honestly. Feedback is our bread and butter when it comes to identifying what’s working and what’s not. But these recent efforts? Nada. Maybe the timing was off, maybe the message didn’t resonate. Whatever the reason, we’re learning that feedback collection is tough, and one failure doesn’t mean we stop trying. It’s just a signal to try something different—maybe clearer communication, better incentives, or simply another approach.
The UX Learning Journey: More Than Just a Design Problem
Improving UX isn’t just a design issue—it’s a learning journey. We aren’t winging it, either. Based on recommendations from my mentor, I’ve dived into two game-changing books:
- Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability by Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney
- Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
These books are like UX bibles for us. Forms That Work offers practical advice on simplifying forms, making them more user-friendly and reducing friction. Meanwhile, Just Enough Research helps us gather valuable insights without drowning in unnecessary data. These resources have become crucial in refining not only the design but the entire user flow within Weed Garden.
Accessibility: It’s Not Optional
One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is that accessibility isn’t optional—it’s essential. Making sure our platform is usable for everyone, including people with disabilities, is critical. That means things like ensuring compatibility with screen readers and designing for users with color contrast sensitivities. Accessibility doesn’t just “happen”; it’s a deliberate part of our process.
Balancing accessibility between desktop and mobile adds layers of complexity, but it’s necessary. We’re committed to making Weed Garden an inclusive tool that everyone can use, no matter their abilities.
CSS Struggles: Enter Tailwind CSS
Ah, CSS. If you’ve ever wrestled with custom styles across screen sizes, you know the pain. For a while, it felt like we were stuck in a cycle of endless tweaks just to make sure things looked right on both mobile and desktop. Enter Tailwind CSS—a game changer.
Tailwind’s utility-first approach has streamlined our workflow, especially when it comes to responsive design. No more custom styles for every little thing—Tailwind handles spacing, layout, and responsiveness with ease. It’s been a big win for our team, saving us countless hours of CSS headaches.
Why We’re Documenting This Journey
Why go through the trouble of documenting all of this? First off, it holds us accountable. Writing these updates forces us to reflect on the choices we’ve made, the challenges we’ve faced, and how we’ve solved them. It’s also a way to track our progress, especially when the daily grind makes it hard to see the bigger picture.
More importantly, we want to share this journey to offer transparency. Building a platform like Weed Garden isn’t easy, and we want our community to see that every feature, design choice, and roadblock is part of a larger process. We’re learning as we go, and by documenting it, we hope others can learn from our experience, too.
Moving Forward: Always Learning, Always Improving
We’re fully committed to improving Weed Garden through better UX, inclusive accessibility, and ongoing user feedback (when we can get it!). It’s not easy, but that’s what makes it worth doing.
For those of you using our platform, we’d love to hear from you. Your input helps shape Weed Garden into the best tool possible for cannabis growers, and we’re here for the long haul.
Quick Joke to Lighten Things Up: Why don’t UX designers trust stairs?
Because they’re always up to something!