Chapter 3

Research Methodology

In this project we have based our research on qualitative, quantitative and

longitudinal methods. Finding the Target Group Further research will have to be
done in this area, but we decided to categorize our main target groups as the
following: Students, Office bound professionals, Families with several kids and plant
growers.
In preparing our questionnaire, we wanted to better understand and identify our
respondents, as such we will start our questionnaire with some demographical
questions. Our next goal will be to both identify the need and usability of our
prototype, as well as making the respondents think about how common the issue
we attempt to solve is. Our final goal of the questionnaire will be to identify if our
respondents believe our prototype to be the solution to this issue as well as
describe any concerns they might have. In conducting our questionnaire we decided
to narrow down our respondents to our core target group, plant growers. This was
done to get a more focused and deep result of our questionnaire.
We have to conduct two interviews with our volunteer for the human interaction
test. One will be at our initial meeting, where we will explain the purpose of the test,
how the system will work and what we would like him to test during the test. We
should also ask about his expectations and hopes for the system.
For the final interview that will be conducted at the end of the test, we will ask how
it all went, what he thought of our prototype, any ideas, corrections, etc.

Requirement analysis:
We will make two scenarios, first, the family leave their home for a two week
vacation. During their vacaton, the plants suffer from their absence, the plants stop
growing, will wither and may die. Second, the plants are over-watered hoping that
they will survive during the absence. Unfortunately, the plants may die from the
massive watering or the water put on it will only last for a few days and will also
start to wither.
If only there was a system which could attend these plants, then the family will
have their plants grow continously and they wouldnt ever have to worry when
leaving home.
Interview
For our initial interview we will spent most of the time setting up and explaining how
the system works, we should ask for his expectations of the system.
After the 2 week test we should ask him what he thought about having the Solar
powered automated watering system. As this was part of the human interaction
test. We would also like to know if a system like this would make him want to get
more plants. In wrapping things up we should also ask if there is anything else he
would like to have changed with the system.
On our projected survey results our focus is on designing a Solar powered
automated watering system. It is designed to be smart and assistive: helping a
user attend household plants. It is focused on automatic watering. With this system

the user has the ability to nurture plants, and rely on the system to monitor the
plants and act to sustain the plants health. Users can and will still be able to nurture
plant on their own without the systems interfering. The system is designed to be
assistive (e.g. watering the plant if the user forgets to do so).