The problem we'll be solving relates to a core part of our web application's user experience. The web application we'll be working on is a frontend to a large plant database with tens of thousands of different species of plants. Among other functionality, it allows users to find specific plants and add them to collections so that they can keep track of their exotic greenhouses and botanical research inventories. The illustration is shown as follows:

Currently, when users wish to find a plant, they must use a search facility that involves entering a plant name (the full Latin name) into a text field, clicking Search, and receiving a set of results, as shown in the following screenshot:

This works well enough, but following some user focus groups and online feedback, it has been decided that we need to offer a better UX for users that enables them to more quickly find the plants they're interested in. Specific points that were raised are as follows:

• I find it burdensome and slow to find species sometimes. I wish it were more immediate and flexible, so that I didn't have to keep going back and making a change to my query, especially if I've spelled it incorrectly.
• Often, when I know the name of a plant species or genus, I'll still get it slightly wrong and get no results. I'll then have to go back and adjust my spelling or search elsewhere online.
• I wish I could see the species and genuses come up as I type. That way I can more quickly find the appropriate plant and not waste any time.

There are a number of usability concerns expressed here. We can distill them into the following three topics:

• Performance: The current search facility is slow and clunky to use
• Error correction: The process of having to correct typing errors is annoying and burdensome
• Feedback: It would be useful to get feedback about existing genuses/species while typing

The task is now becoming clearer. We need to improve the UX so that users are able to query the database of plants in a way that is faster, provides more immediate feedback, and lets them prevent or correct typing errors along the way.