SVETLANA SILKINA
Product Manager & Designer
End-to-End Product Design & Launch for a Garden SaaS
From discovery to Google Play launch, designing and building a cross-platform software service using AI workflows.
Role
Sole Product Manager, Designer and AI Front-End Developer
Deliverables
Live Android Product: Download Flora Sketch on the Google Play Store
Tools & Tech Stack
Figma
VS Code
Android Studio
Adobe Suite
Github
Sentry
Cloudflare
AI
Research & innovation
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Analyzed Top 10 Market Competitors
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Mined Competitor Reviews
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Researched Industry Performance and Statistics
6 Feature Pillars: Data-Driven Design and Proactive Innovation
1. CAD Engine with Bezier Curves
Pain Point: Reviews complained about rigid box grids that made drawing organic property lines impossible.
Solution: Bezier curve and CAD tools plus a Google Maps trace feature to map real-world property boundaries.
2. Unified 8000+ Plant Library
Pain Point: Users forced to download separate apps for edibles vs ornamental garden design.
Solution: Created an extensive plant library with all plant categories, from vegetables to trees to spring bulbs.
29%
Reviewers wanted a plant library that included standard plant categories such as trees and shrubs.
52%
Reviewers wanted curve drawing and real property dimensions
Industry wide churn & drop off
3. Dynamic 4-Season Canvas Tool
July-August: Shift in Task Types, Mid Season Burnout
October-December: First Frost, Garden Dormancy
Solution: Extend engagement by giving users a tool to be able to view their garden's fall foliage, winter bare spots, and plan for spring bulbs during peak bulb planting season (October-December)
Global customer reach increased by 95%
4. Metric & Imperial Unit Toggle
Global Opportunity: None of the competitors offered metric units. The lack of metric were some of the top passionately negative reviews.
Solution: Only around 5% of the global population uses imperial, the rest use the metric system. A metric unit option was a must have.
5. User Friendly Onboarding Guide
UX Friction: First-time users experience the common “blank canvas paralyzation” when starting a fresh design.
Solution & Opportunity: An immersive and interactive step by step onboarding guide that helps users create functional zones for their garden, i.e. outdoor kitchen, reading nook, firepit. Solving the blank canvas friction point while also creating an emotional connection to the design
6. Plant Growth Slider
Pain Point: Users struggled to plan long term spacing because static designs only show fully mature plants.
Solution: A dynamic growth visualization toggle to preview plant scales from seedling to mature.
+306%
Lifetime value
A landmark study by Motista published in Harvard Business Review revealed that emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value than customers who are simply satisfied
5 star reviewers commented that this would be a
helpful additional feature
*This was an easy and quick bonus feature to build to engage users already happy using competitor products
Information Architecture & Workflows
Mental Models and Screen Space
Organized the app around how gardeners naturally think, establishing a clean three-part structure that mirrors familiar mental models while protecting valuable screen space.
By separating the main menu from active project tools and floating canvas controls, the interface eliminates cognitive friction so users can find what they need without second guessing where features live.
Scope Creep
Initial product roadmap included 24 planned features, creating scope creep that threatened launch timelines and mobile UI simplicity.
Pivot
Conducted feature prioritization matrix to aggressively trim the launch scope down to the 6 most critical core utilities.
Impact
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Kept project on schedule
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Reduced interface complexity for first time users
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optimized touch ergonomics
1
Breaking Mobile Limits
Heavy CAD rendering is traditionally constrained to desktop hardware because even top-tier smartphones buckle under complex vector workloads.
Pivot
Engineered a custom hybrid sprite engine that automatically engages at the 300 asset threshold to offload heavy mobile rendering and allows for thousands of assets.
Impact
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Added 2 months to launch timeline
- enabled fluid, lag free mobile/tablet editing for layouts with thousands of plants
2
Systems Design & Code Maintainability
AI generated style guide inadvertently ballooned into a redundant and messy 4000+ line design system. Standard is around 600 lines of code.
Pivot
Manually audit, prune, and consolidate token structures down to a lean under 600 line standard, and re-linking every UI component for future maintainability
Impact
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Paused production for 4 days
- Eliminated technical debt
- established an easily maintainable design system for future updates
3
Usability, testing,and
Design Trade-Offs
From CONCEPT TO PRODUCT SHIPMENT
UI Design & WCAG Standards
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Modern and responsive UI to differentiate from competitors
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Maintain a minimum color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for text
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Keyboard navigation for desktop
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Minimum 44px touch targets for mobile and tablets
Launch & Operations
Cloud Connections & Security
Configured API's for Sentry and Cloudlfare to moniter crash reports and performance in real time, while setting up an automated contact system if users want help or have questions.
Monetization Infrastructure
Integrated subscription billing API's to support the live product model and researched pricing best practices.
Google Play Store Release
Published under a verified business LLC after completing a DUNS registration and store compliance reviews. Due to thorough prep, the first submission was approved by Google Play.
Key Takeaways & Reflection
This project proved that product design extends far beyond figma layouts and taught me that hard technical constraints, like mobile rendering thresholds, aren't roadblocks - they are drivers of innovative design. That technical realities require just as much creative problem-solving as the interface itself, and by treating performance and architecture as UX problems, I learned how to build scalable solutions and what it takes to bring a modern SaaS product to market.