Hortis Public Sites
Company
Species360
Role
Senior Product Designer
Timeline
2024
Website
Project Overview
Education is mission critical for many botanic gardens, and whilst Hortis captures and shares botanical data, it doesn’t surface it for the general public or staff from other gardens. We created Public Sites as a stand alone web app connected to Hortis that allows botanical gardens and arboreta to share their living collections with the public and industry proffessionals through customisable, mobile-friendly web pages. I led the design, focusing on simplicity, accessibility, and flexibility for both garden staff and visitors. From early research through to launch and iteration, I helped shape an experience that enables gardens to curate what they publish via their core plant records in Hortis, manage plant visibility in bulk, and present plant data with clarity and visual appeal. Public Sites has become a powerful tool for extending the impact of botanical data beyond the garden staff—supporting education, outreach, and public engagement.
While visitors explore the garden they can dive into the map on public sites to learn more about a specific taxon.
The desktop version of the map allows exploration on a bigger screen and enables the public as well as other botanists or researchers to explore the collection remotely—particularly useful for gardens that don't have the resources for a proffessional collections portal.
Browse mode enables an overview of the garden and their mission, as well as the opportunity to explore specific taxa in the collection and find them on the map.
Impact
Public Sites launched with our first pilot partner, Memphis Zoo, where we tested the feature live in the field. Staff used Hortis on an iPad as they walked the grounds, reviewing and curating which plant records to display publicly. This real-world workflow validated the ease and flexibility of managing public visibility directly from the core records system. The launch proved that Public Sites could support a lightweight, dynamic approach to outreach—allowing gardens to share living collections with visitors, researchers, and educators without duplicating effort. Feedback from Memphis and subsequent partners confirmed that the tool filled a long-standing gap between internal records and public interpretation, helping institutions extend the reach and value of their collections.
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