Bachelor-thesis

māra

Connecting and digitalizing
urban garden projects

Urban gardening refers to the collaborative use of urban open spaces by associations or small projects. It offers members the opportunity to shape the city, promote sustainable cultivation and experience social integration. The challenges involve networking, organization, and integration, especially for members with language barriers.

The māra application aims to improve communication and social interaction in garden projects. It is designed to be user-friendly so that it can be used without language skills or digital expertise. The app encourages members to actively help and supports important organizational functions. The goal is barrier-free collaboration in gardens, regardless of social background or language.

Concept

Garden projects bring together diverse communities with different demographic backgrounds and specific project purposes of a garden such as integration, community gardening, self-sustainability, and environmentally friendly practices.

However, these projects face significant challenges, particularly related to language barriers and limited digital expertise, which make collaboration difficult.
This complicates effective communication and social interaction among project members, especially those with a migrant background and the elderly.

The primary mission of mara is to improve the community experience in garden projects by breaking down language and digital barriers.  The app aims to achieve this by improving communication and fostering stronger social connections between garden enthusiasts.

What are the goals?

Simplified Communication

mara offers features that simplify  communication within garden communities.  It aims to bridge language barriers and  promote clear and effortless communication.

Visual Support

To address language and comprehension difficulties, the app emphasizes simple language and uses visually supportive design elements. Functional icons are used for navigation, and important organizational elements are illustrated to facilitate better understanding..

Community Building

mara contains functions that facilitate social interaction in garden projects. It promotes knowledge sharing, mutual support in gardening and a sense of solidarity..

The māra application

Urban gardens are multi-faceted.
The individual projects differ not only in their members and area, but entirely in their structure and design. This is exactly where the „māra“ application comes in.

With topics and functions that concern all urban gardens and with the primary goal of bringing the members within the gardens together.

Garden profile

The individual gardens connected in this application have their own individual garden profile.  On their profile they can present information about their garden, its members, rules, etc. for new members.

Prototype

During the development of the app, we kept building different prototypes.
For the final version of the app, we built a click dummy in which all developed functions are represented.

The prototype is embedded in the website.
Feel free to click through and explore the app.

Please use the link below for mobile devices.
For better experience we recommend the use of Protopie Player.