Designing a solution

Through our foundational research, we saw a few key opportunities to enhance the experience:

Redesigning calculator for mobile

The problem
One of the common areas users accessed in the application was a place called the “Projected Milk Value”, and analytics showed that is was accessed most often on mobile, even though it wasn’t responsive. The existing tool presented itself as overly complex, and heat maps showed that users rarely used parts of the tool such as “Your projections”.

• Farmers want to be able to access while in the field

• Overcomplicated calculator with parts rarely used

The solution
After a lot of exploration, we ended up using analytics and notes from interviews to figure out what the most important features were in the calculator and highlight those, making a simplified version that still accomplished the original goal.

• Cut out columns that were rarely used or didn't need to be highlighted

• Organized the fields to better fit a mobile view, making sure it fit without a lengthy scroll

• Gave a link at the bottom to the full view for the few cases where everything was needed

Custom notifications

The problem
We learned from research that farmers wanted to be notified when certain readings, such as protein level, were too high or low with their milk, but also didn’t want to be overwhelmed with notifications. On top of this, different user groups desired different notifications at different thresholds, which changed from farm to farm.

• Impossible to pick and choose what notifications you get

• Unable to control the threshold of when they get notifications

• Notifications were farm wide instead of user to user

The solution
To accomplish this, we built out a custom notification system where users can individually decide what notifications they want, and at what thresholds they want them received at.

• Can choose to get email and/or text alerts

• Notification thresholds are completely customizable, as are which are active

• Changed how permissions work so each user had their own notification settings

Testing, Iterating, and Presenting our Findings

Prototyping and initial user testing
I used Axure to create a full functioning prototype focusing on the key areas of the calculator and notifications. We drove out to different farms around the area and tested farmers on the initial prototype, which allowed us to quickly iterate before future tests.

User tests at a Dairy Conference
After the updates to the prototype, we flew out to the Tri-Cities in Washington to test additional users at the Darigold YC conference. These tests ran smoothly, validating many of our findings from our previous round, and only had to change minor details in the final design. Overall the product was received very favorably, specifically with the new mobile compatibility, as well as the robust notification systems.

Delivery
After our changes, we presented our prototype to the client, and got approval to move forward. Unfortunately due to COVID, the actual build was put on pause until 2021, though now development is coming back in full swing.