Ag-Tech Grower Portal
Catalyzing change in agriculture
As a Product Designer, I provided user experience research, high-fidelity prototypes, and an implementation plan of a redefined experience for a Series D Biotechnology startup in agriculture.
Problem Statement
The client's web portal for growers, sales reps, and agronomists accommodates agricultural season workflows. Development efforts are costly in transforming off-the-shelf solutions, so the client wanted to explore a build versus buy approach to determine the efficacy of introducing and maintaining an in-house SDLC and engineering team.
Team Composition
1 Product Manager
1 Product Designer
4+ Software Engineers
4+ Stakeholders on Sustainability Team
My Impact
Explored build versus buy of in-house software
Analyzed grower workflows based on usability
Crafted high-fidelity, extensible design system
Provided interface to shop for implementation bids
The Crucial Role of Research
Research and Innovation
I collaborated closely with product management to understand the nuances of the business and its offerings and incorporated my research into UX deliverables and prototypical, user-centered design.
In the ever-evolving world of agriculture and biotechnology, where innovation is the key to yield and sustainability, creating an efficient and user-friendly web application portal is a challenge that demands a deep understanding of user needs and the industry domain. I worked on the next-generation portal that represented where the company could go with a mindset toward growth and intellectual property ownership.
From the earliest days of the project, I immersed myself in the company, its products, and the use cases for change methodology as adopted by growers who were looking for a more sustainable product for their fields as opposed to typical synthetic nitrogen. The physical product at hand can be more cost-effective and less pollutive than traditional methods—volatilization of nitrogen is a common issue when it comes to using fertilizer on a field—whereas the company’s product was able to combat this issue due to in-furrow methods and being a different implementation entirely.
Understanding Grower Needs
As a part of the Sustainability Team, it was my job to have a solid understanding of the users (growers, in this case), their needs and pain points, and the software the growers used, in conjunction with using the company’s products. We determined, through analytics, that growers didn’t use the software very often; in fact, they only visited the website around planting and harvest times. Many times, they had forgotten their login details because it was months in between. Conducting user interviews and diving deep into heuristics on the existing platform was fascinating. Exploring this information allowed the team to put ourselves in the shoes of the growers, and reorient experiences to be more conversational, and less esoteric.
Lesson Learned
Working on a new portal implementation was informative but relied on leveraging the deep dive I took into the context of the business and its offerings is a lesson I have learned in working with disparate industries.
For someone who had never worked in agriculture or biotechnology, gathering this information allowed me to leverage experience and best practices to delineate new workflows. It was interesting to note how closely grower needs aligned with the seasonality and needs from the physical work they did in the field; dealing with nitrogen sources, having to work with FMS, and downloading planting files were flows I had to learn and consider.
Some of the earliest designs of the new portal were to create a sense of stakeholder buy-in. To do so, I focused on low-hanging fruit through log-in and registration flows; since these flows didn’t rely on implementations of external data sources, they were good candidates to show the future of what a custom-built platform could look like. I gravitated towards a sans-serif font, bold imagery, and modern design techniques such as blurs, gradients, and drop shadows to help create depth. I worked through the various flows to ensure I met the requirements of a user getting into/onto the platform.
Designing a Custom Solution
The question of investment in software usually results in a decision regarding build vs. buy; typically unearthing conversations about extensibility, control, and price. Building custom software requires significant time and resources for development and ongoing maintenance. On the other hand, buying ready-made solutions can save time and come with vendor support, but may not always perfectly fit unique requirements and can limit customization. Choosing between these options depends on careful consideration of an organization's needs, resources, and long-term goals.
Complex Problem Solving
Through ideation and iteration, I enjoy breaking down ambiguous or abstract ideas and synthesizing them into meaningful interfaces that align with the needs of the end-users.
In working with the Sustainability Team, we found it prudent to de-risk the ‘build‘ route, by spending cycles on the design of a custom portal, relative to the company’s brand and approach to conversational UI. I created a refined onboarding flow way to interact with field data. As a grower, there are a few key ‘jobs to be done’ that the platform has to consider, one of which is the ability to add or upload fields and assign trial programs to them, to participate and earn credits per acre.
Alongside a brand-focused web experience for Growers, I had the opportunity to work on the login and registration flow and interaction patterns for the portal. I enjoy thinking through the various states, flows, and interactions that an end-user would encounter in various stages, from requesting an account to creating new login credentials that adhere to policies of the organization. This is a sampling of pages, designed in Figma, and presented to stakeholders in the form of an interactive prototype, which was used to garner iterative feedback and comments.
Cohesive
Credible
Empathetic
Human-First
Responsible
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Cohesive Credible Empathetic Human-First Responsible —
This is one of the many high-fidelity pages that were crafted through a series of interactive feedback loops, and guidance from members of the Sustainability Team. An idea that came to light from the user research cycles was to redesign the Fields table to consolidate data from various sources, allow for typical data filtering and sorting functionality, and extend the ability to see where the fields were in coordination with their corresponding trials. All of the cells are custom components with variants, created in Figma, allowing for easy transformation and developers to easily identify functionality.
Staying True to Expectations
The team and I understood the importance of staying true to growers’ expectations and not inundating them with new changes or unnecessary, bloated features. While introducing innovative features and capabilities, I made sure that the core experience remained familiar and comfortable for growers. This balance is crucial to ensuring adoption and long-term user satisfaction.
Design Systems & Standards
My forte is in creating and evolving design systems to align with brand standards. Having worked as a front-end developer, I have had the opportunity to see how these components are styled and bring that experience to my work.
When designing a custom portal, it’s important to maintain consistency and align with the company's brand identity, which I kept in mind and worked with brand owners to ensure consistency. The custom design system allowed me to infuse the platform with the company's distinctive visual language. Through this exercise, the idea was to amplify a brand experience that resonated with growers and instilled trust in our platform.
These insights were instrumental in developing custom interfaces and components that fit seamlessly into daily workflows. Whether it was simplifying the process of claiming incentives or providing data-driven insights into sustainable farming practices, our design and user interface innovations were aimed at empowering growers and advancing the cause of sustainable agriculture; in a way, design has to take a step back and allow for growers to perform their tasks and get back to the real work in the field.
A highly requested feature from product owners, growers, and agronomists was to create a “magic grid” where historical and current commercial year information was surfaced and editable. This way, a grower can get a breakdown of their planting information, nitrogen usage, and harvest data succinctly. This view contains most of the nuanced information a grower needs, alongside a pop-out view for timely insights and high-level field information, provided for context.
What’s Next for the Client
This project was a great example of the capabilities of custom software, built specifically for growers because it put their needs at the forefront and allowed us to build prototypes with them in mind. Moving forward would have meant fully embracing the portal and the build-over-buy model; in this case, the company opted to go with an off-the-shelf solution built by Salesforce. The nature of this work is that there is value in de-risking objectives through design, with the ultimate decision coming down to executive leadership and their long-term view of the company. The experience of working on this portal has opened up other opportunities, so I was honored to have been considered.
Strategic Design Leadership
In this project, I had the opportunity to define the product's design direction and vision with support from product management, leading a design initiative that was aligned with the business goals to explore build versus buy.
In addition to the redesigned portal that was created in the context of build versus buy, I worked as a Product Designer with the vendor team that created and maintained the trials SaaS software product that was used by the company. We continued to modify the existing portal to introduce newly requested features and tighten up interactions to ensure a more seamless customer flow that incorporated iterative feedback.
Outcomes and Results
I provided the framework for a high-fidelity, interactive prototype for the client's goal of building a custom, end-to-end product that encapsulated the needs of growers, sales reps, and agronomists. The portal incorporated custom workflows that leveraged best-in-class practices and responsive design. I also helped bridge the gap for their current needs in an existing portal.
Disclaimer: Work shown was created while employed at Nearby Creative and displayed with permission. Header image from Unsplash.
