Farmer app - Carbon
iOS & Android - 2021 - 2022
Company
Indigo Ag
Business Line
Carbon Product for Indigo’s Sustainability Program
My role
Lead UX Designer
Primary team
Project manager, iOS engineers (3), Android engineers (2)
Project description
Indigo’s native app for farmers provides them with functionality to record important farming practice data while they are in the field, as opposed to at the end of the season when sitting at their desktop computer. Farmers typically don’t have the time or patience to sit at a computer recalling the season’s details, so being able to pull out their phone and easily input data while they’re sitting in the cab of their tractor provides a huge opportunity to increase program participation and accurate carbon credit generation.
Feature goals
Develop a completely new feature within the existing farmer app that is centered on data collection and is a complement to the website experience
This feature could be rolled out incrementally in phased milestones
Leverage native functionality to enhance the experience
Geolocation, push notifications, cameras, map integration, offline capabilities
Influence behavior change as growers discover how mobile data collection can make data collection easy and efficient
Example slide from presentation demonstrating the utility of native mobile functionality
Presenting to leadership
Historically Indigo has prioritized desktop optimized web experiences over native mobile. Alongside my product manager we convinced leadership of the benefits of further developing the native mobile experience. From there we started outlining a strategy for design and development.
Our strategy
We planned a phased-out approach to feature development that would leverage existing app functionality
Create simple farm records from existing evidence upload feature
Read-only version of farm records timeline to give users context when uploading documents
Ability to fully add or edit new farm records directly in the mobile app
View records by practice type or growing season
Ability to copy event data to multiple fields
User testing
User testing consisted of 60 minute guided interviews over zoom with 7 participants who were part of Indigo’s Carbon program
Research goals:
Understand if the designed feature satisfied the user needs for mobile data collection
Where did we meet expectations or fall short?
What can we add and how should it be prioritized?
Key takeaways:
Many users found value in real-time data collection and could see themselves entering information on mobile while on their farm
Farmers found uploading evidence a natural and valuable mobile task
Users were looking for the more “efficient” workflows that were automated when possible
Farmers suggested that they would like the functionality that comes from GPS tracking
Feature is better for returning users who understand data requirements
Request for more visual cues to guide them (badging, notifications, alerts)
“So if it’s just a photo and I could just sit there and turn around and snap a picture of the front of the planter as environment through the field. Heck yeah, let me do that. Call it. I’m done”
“Would do this if it was super efficient - 45 seconds tops”
“This would be a good tool if I am out and the planting is done and I am a going to do fertilizer event”
“None of us like to have to sit in the tractor and punch in it in... but that is when it is fresh in your mind. Makes more sense to do it right then and there”
Updates made after testing
Based on finds we made the following updates to the data collection feature
Updated certain components to look more actionable
Copy updates to make requirements more clear and concise
Removal of unnecessary information
Encouraging users to download the native app in web experience
Auto-advancing user in complex workflows to save time and reduce taps
Multi-field select and draft mode for event
Final designs & Conclusion
After releasing the mobile data collection feature we saw an increase in mobile usage
Native mobile application usage is increasing, and as more features are added, that number will continue growing. As most users tend to be those that are fully committed to the Carbon program and are final filing, it is expected that we can see a shift in usage of the native app instead of the web for their next Carbon harvest
