Overview

An agriculture company that managed calves through a mobile application sought to redesign their platform for a tablet-friendly experience. The caretakers, who spend long hours in the field, needed a larger and more accessible interface than what the mobile version could provide.

In addition, the client wanted to explore distributing the application as a white-label product. This required building the solution with scalability and flexibility in mind, ensuring it could be easily expanded and adapted for different partners in the future.

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Project Goals

• Improve user experience to be more suitable for in-field users
• Enhance the user interface to provide a better user experience for tablet users.
• Limit unnecessary navigation within the interface </aside>

Research Stage

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Challenges

• The client was located overseas, which meant the team could not observe live field operations or communicate directly with the animal caretakers. Instead, all insights and feedback had to be gathered through discussions with top management.
• The team had no prior experience in the agriculture industry, which limited domain-specific design knowledge and required extra effort to bridge the gap through client collaboration. </aside>

Background Research

Given my limited knowledge of the agriculture industry and livestock care, I made it a priority to immerse myself in the subject before beginning the project. To build this foundation, I explored industry articles, reviewed relevant documentation, and analyzed existing applications designed for the agriculture sector.

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Challenges

• Most applications designed for farm animal management were business-to-business solutions, making them inaccessible for direct download or use. This limited my ability to explore their functionality firsthand and understand their workflows. </aside>

To overcome the limited access to competitive applications, I reviewed user interface screenshots and product descriptions available in app stores. While this did not provide a full understanding of the applications’ inner workings, it offered enough insight into the common features offered in this domain.

Additionally, I was provided with credentials to explore the client’s existing application. I conducted a usability audit on both mobile and tablet devices, which helped me evaluate the available features and identify user experience limitations.

This research laid the groundwork for making informed recommendations to enhance the user experience and enabled me to contribute more effectively during the discovery workshop

Understanding the user