Gardener interviews/2/Ju

Demographics
Age:


 * 30-55

Where do you live? (general area OK) -- Western suburbs of Melbourne

Your garden
Tell me about your garden?


 * no garden at present -- future plans: ideally wants to have herbs, huge priority -- love using herbs in my cooking and hate paying $3 for a little bundle. I'd also love to have strawberries and raspberries.  I'm looking at living in a small house with a courtyard or balcony, or I may just be dealing with indoor plants.

How long have you been growing food?


 * partners installed a new veg garden in Perth and were growing herbs/vegies there. I was the only person who really remembered to water it, but I was away a lot, so only the things that were hard to kill survived. Rocket did well, chillis did well for a while, so did basil and parsley.

Why do you grow your own food? What do you like best about it?


 * i like being able to walk out the door and get it right there -- it's fresh.

Do you garden with anyone else/does anyone help you with the garden?


 * it'll depend on my potential housemate, if someone's really enthusiastic then maybe I would share with them

Growstuff use
So, you've signed up for Growstuff. I'm going to ask you about various parts of the site and whether you've used them. You can just answer yes/no, or give more detail about how you've used something, if you like.


 * edited your profile - Y
 * listed your location - N
 * planted something - N, only on dev site (waiting to have my own garden)
 * added a photo - N
 * added another garden or edited your default garden - N
 * checked out the crop database - Y, because interested in crop wrangling
 * checked out other members - Y, looked up friends' profiles/gardens
 * searched for members near you - N
 * looked at another member's profile - Y
 * sent a private message to a member - no (only on dev)
 * read people's posts - no, i'm notoriously bad at forums
 * read the forums - N
 * posted something - N
 * ... on the forums? - N
 * commented on a post? - N
 * bought a paid account - not yet, but intend to
 * subscribed to an RSS feed for anything on the site - Y (newsletter/blog, not actually on site)
 * read the support/FAQ page - Y
 * checked out the wiki - Y

I'm going to describe four types of activity or ways of using Growstuff, then ask you how much each one describes you, and how you'd like to use Growstuff.

Tracking: keeping a garden journal, noting down what you planted and when, for your own reference.

Sharing: writing or posting information publicly, to share it with friends or others, and to make connections with people who might have similar experiences or interests.

Learning: researching things to grow, reading tips or how-tos, asking for help and getting advice.

Trading: buying or selling or swapping produce, seeds, skills, etc, either with people who live in your immediate area, or further away by mail.

Which of these sounds most like you? Sharing/Learning

Which describes you least? Trading

If Growstuff were to focus energy on one of these areas over the next 6 months, in terms of developing new features etc, which would you choose?


 * tracking/learning -- wants wishlist/planning ability

Specific features
I'm going to list some potential new features for Growstuff, and I'm interested in your thoughts on each one. I'll ask you to rate each one based on how strongly you would like it to be implemented, as follows:


 * Strongly agree
 * Agree
 * Don't care
 * Disagree
 * Strongly disagree

You can also expand on each one and tell me if you have any related ideas or thoughts.

Tracking

 * Plant crops that aren't currently in the database - 3
 * Expand the range of crops in the system - 4
 * Add more fields to the planting form (which?) - 3
 * Ability to mark a planting as finished (eg. dead, all harvested, etc.) - 5
 * Ability to mark a garden as inactive (eg. moved house) - 4
 * Track harvests of produce (eg. 3lb tomatoes) - 5
 * Ability to transplant from one garden to another - 5
 * Wishlist for things you'd like to plant in future - 5
 * To-do list for future planting/maintenance (eg. feeding, pruning) - 5
 * Track what seeds you have - 5
 * Track other materials/equipment/resources - 4

Sharing

 * Post your updates to Twitter/Facebook/other social media (which?) - 5 (definitely twitter, maybe facebook)
 * Make it easier to find members near you (geographically) - 4
 * Make it easier to find people you know - 4 (as long as non-creepy)
 * Find members who grow things similar to you (regardless of location) - 5
 * Follow other members - 4
 * "Newsfeed" of activity from people you're following - 4
 * Ability to comment in more places (eg. on people's plantings or photos) - 5
 * More forums/different topics - 3
 * Threaded comments on posts - 4
 * Ability to track forums or posts, and get email notifications - 5 (then i might actually use them!)

Learning

 * Add more information to the crop page (what?) - 4 (what people have made from it)
 * Allow posts/comments to link to crops, and show that discussion on the crop page - 5 (strongly in favour of crossreferencing and layering the ways in which people use the site socially)
 * Map of where a crop is being grown - 4
 * More information about what people near you are growing - 3

Trading

 * Offer seeds to sell/swap - 5
 * Offer produce to sell/swap - 5 (for people who are local, obviously)
 * Offer equipment/resources to share/swap/etc (eg. manure, woodchipper) - 4

Other

 * Improved site design/visual appeal - 5
 * Better international/multilingual support, eg. international names for crops - 4
 * Better mobile support (phone/tablet) - 3 (don't tend to use mobile for this)
 * API (Application Programming Interface) - 2

Now I'm going to remind you of some of the things you said you really wanted. Of these, which are the three you want *most*?


 * wishlist, comment on plantings/photos/etc, link to crops and show discussion on crops page

Of those three, which single one do you want most?


 * wishlist

Communications
Now I'm going to ask you about how Growstuff communicates with our members.

Do you follow us on Twitter? Y

Are you subscribed to our email newsletter? Y

Do you read our blog? Y

Do you read any RSS feeds from the Growstuff website itself? Not yet

How often, on average, do you currently hear something from or about Growstuff? Daily, weekly, monthly, less often? between weekly/monthly

Would you like to hear from us more, less, or about the same? about the same

How would you most like to hear from us? Email, blog/RSS, Twitter, Facebook, other social media?


 * I like it when Twitter reminds me there are blog posts. I like the content of the newsletter but would be OK with getting it via the blog.

What information do you want from us? I'll give some examples and you can say agree/disagree like before.


 * Information about new features/updates to the site - 5
 * Updates on site activity: forum posts, who's planting what, etc - 4
 * Updates just from friends/people you follow - 5
 * Suggestions for things to grow based on your location - 3
 * How to get more involved in Growstuff, volunteer opportunities, etc - 5 -- want specific tasks, rather than broad/non-specific
 * Related events/activities/resources from beyond Growstuff - 4