Powerful warranty-backed Crop Plans that reduce risks for Farmers
Role: Lead UI/UX Designer
Duration: 5 Months
As a team we wanted to revolutionize and drive farmers to adopt new crops and practices by de-risking financial exposure
OVERIVEW
Crop Plan was an all hands on deck effort from everyone involved. There was no existing precedence for a process or product that provided a warranty-backed crop plan. An important aspect of this was creating a seamless, intuitive, and easy to understand UI which would in turn give the user a wonderful experience.
We wanted to take something that was time consuming and confusing and make it something enjoyable for anyone and everyone.
MIRO Journey Map
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
I was tasked as the lead designer on this project and was involved in every step of the product development process from the early stages where we gathered requirements to guiding the development team through the buildout of the application.
-Designed a sleek and intuitive interface that’s simple to navigate and easy to understand
-Collaborated with developers and project owners in order to effectively fulfill user needs
-Created various deliverables such as wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and flowcharts
-Gain understanding of target users through research and interaction
CHALLENGES
As with any complex project the challenges were plentiful. They ranged anywhere from generating ideas during our white-boarding process to deciding on what features we wanted to have for our first release. These were some of the challenges I faced:
-Taking a complex process with many steps and dramatically simplifying it
-Distinguishing between business needs and wants for MVP
-Effectively guiding the business through difficult design decisions
-Very stringent project timeline
Farmer Persona
SPRINT ZERO
With this being a new product that was being built from the ground up we decided to completely reset the clock and start at sprint zero. This helped us establish timelines, set up ground rules as far as how our sprints would go, and so on.
Our first sprint consisted of gathering requirements for the project from various sources on the business side of the company. We spent a majority of our initial sprint white-boarding how the application would flow and what it would be composed of. We used MIRO as our tool of choice for ideation, to create user flows, and jot down what features we wanted for the MVP release.
-Created multiple personas that would accurately represent our end user through interviews
-Developing user flows to better understand how the application would flow through and through
-Facilitated meetings between sales and development team to close any gaps in the requirements
-Building out a low fidelity prototype of the application for my first iteration and presenting it to numerous stakeholders within the organization
Adobe XD - Wireframes
DID SOMEONE SAY HIGH-FIDELITY?
Developing a prototype was single-handedly the most important aspect of my design process for this project. This allowed me to present the design to the business as something more than just a set of sketches and wireframes.
It gave them the ability to run through the application and experience it almost as if it was a fully functioning product. This gave them the chance to pick it apart, see what worked, and what didn’t. The feedback that I got from the first iteration of the high-fidelity prototype would drive the rest of the design process throughout the entire duration of the project. The prototype was integral from the very start of the project to the very end and was used by almost every individual that was assigned to this project.
Adobe XD - Prototype
LISTENING TO FEEDBACK AND ITERATING
Feedback was extremely important throughout the span of the project but the initial comments I received upon completing the first prototype proved to be some of the most integral feedback.
There was a ton of dialog between all of the teams which helped drive a lot of my product design decisions. At the same time it was very gratifying hearing all of the positive feedback and very humbling hearing the constructive feedback that came along with it. I strongly believe that feedback played an integral role in turning this project from something good into something great.
THE TEAM
Our team for this project was diverse and composed of individuals from every part of the company.
We had executives, commercial, sales, and plenty of other folks who were brought on to drive the development of the product. It was truly a herculean effort going from the drawing board to a fully functioning application but nonetheless we all worked effectively together to bring this product to life. It was amazing being able to get insight from people who have so many different skills and meshing it with our expertise on the development side. I can definitely say it made for a powerhouse of a team.
-Sam Bunz, Product Owner
-Nick O'Hara, Delivery Lead
-Kerim Hadzic, Lead UI/UX Designer
-Will Shaw, Lead Software Engineer
-Jessica Haynes, Software Engineer
-Kris Nielsen, Software Engineer
-Keith Snider, Microservices Engineer
-Patty Elliot, Lead Quality Analyst
GALLERY
SUMMARY
It’s always a pretty great day when you manage to successfully create a product that will help people. It’s what we set out to do as a team and I think we achieved just that.
This project was a whirlwind in the most positive way possible. I got the honor of designing an application from the ground up and making sure it hit all of the marks as far as requirements and user needs went. Apart from that I got to work with so many different individuals in our organization that I wouldn’t have gotten to work with if it wasn’t for this project. I loved every challenging second of this project and the fact that it truly pushed me past my boundaries as a designer.