FARMERA is a data platform for integrated health management of livestock.
All measuring devices, sensors and actors will deliver and receive data to analyse, predict and maintain health and wellbeing of farm animals.
FARMERA will be the key platform for farmers and veterinarians to keep their animals healthy and produce safe food for the world.
All measuring devices, sensors and actors will deliver and receive data to analyse, predict and maintain health and wellbeing of farm animals.
FARMERA will be the key platform for farmers and veterinarians to keep their animals healthy and produce safe food for the world.
MY ROLE
As the only internal lead designer for FARMERA, I strive to make the product a success. I am responsible for the end-to-end product development lifecycle, from discovery to delivery. I also provide strategic support to Product Manager and Scrum Master in developing OKRs and roadmap, as well as help building a strong and effective culture of working as a Scrum Team.
FRom feature enhancement to feature deporitization
Background
Farmera allows farmers to capture data regarding (1) feed delivery and (2) feed bin switch. Currently these data cannot be accessed remotely, we want to allow farmers to document what they already do on paper - to replace barn sheet. This would have given us access to feed medications and feed consumption.
Original task
“ Could you add a status in the App to show how much feed is left?”
At first, the task was to expand the feed feature. But I quickly find out the feature was developed based on the workflow of one customer. Project manager and I then agreed to do a feature evaluation first.
PROPOSED task - feature evaluation
Discover the workflows of feed ordering, feed delivery and feed bin switch for other customers, to see how they differ from this one customer and what the common cases are.
(1) Evaluated existing design against known goals
The feed feature allows
a. farmers to record when feed is delivery and when they switch the feed bin,
b. so that antibiotics withdrawal period , and cost of feed is calculated.
a. farmers to record when feed is delivery and when they switch the feed bin,
b. so that antibiotics withdrawal period , and cost of feed is calculated.
In order to see if we achieves these 2 goals. Together with PM, I map out the user journey of that one customer around feed handling on barn. It is to understand how in real life is the feature being used and the rationale behind the UI, to see if they achieved the goals.
Workflow around Feed of one of our customers
Simplified visualization
💡Findings:
✔️ The main goal of capturing antibiotic withdrawal to be compliant to law is achieved.
✖️ The goal of calculating total cost on feed hasn't been accomplished. Because there is no way to see this information.
(2) Look at usage
I looked at the logs and learnt that among 11 customers, 4 has used the feature, only 1 is currently using it. I can thus investigate the reasons why customers stopped using it, and why some never started to use it. Also if we have interviews in the future, it gives me more context when asking them questions.
(3) Talk with Sales & marketing Team
I learnt that there are several reasons why customer stopped using it or have never used it:
- Low/slow adoption rate of Farmera, feed feature is not a priority
- Feature doesn't suit their situation (e.g. have more than 2 bins)
- Low/slow adoption rate of Farmera, feed feature is not a priority
- Feature doesn't suit their situation (e.g. have more than 2 bins)
(4) Interviews customers
I interviewed 2 customers who never started using the feed feature. Surprisingly, both of them ❌do not need farmers to record any feed data❌ due to the following reasons:
- Bin scales (sensor) provide real time data
- Has own feed mill, all the data already there
- Farmers are not responsible for any feed documentation
- Has own feed mill, all the data already there
- Farmers are not responsible for any feed documentation
Bin Sensor and Own Feed Mill
(5) Validate assumptions by Questionnaire
Before investing too much time on interviews, I decided to switch to questionnaire to validate the assumptions of our feature with other customers:
- Farmers are responsible for the feed record
- Feed bin switch and feed delivery need to be recorded at barn level to
- To calculate consumption and cost
- To track antibiotics withdrawal
- Feed bin switch and feed delivery need to be recorded at barn level to
- To calculate consumption and cost
- To track antibiotics withdrawal
This is a big learning for us - we probably should have done this questionnaire in the first place. We just assume that every customer has the need to record feed data to that extend! Never assumes :) The questionnaire aims to find out
- Who is responsible for feed data record (if at all)
- What kind of feed record are kept
- Feed medication withdrawal issue
- What kind of feed record are kept
- Feed medication withdrawal issue
💡Findings
- 6 out of 8 producers, Farmers are currently not responsible to capture feed deliveries, feed medications and bin switches on paper.
- Withdrawal periods for feed are managed by (1) coloured feed (2) using medicated feed only in nurseries (3) tagging of feed bins and removal only by supervisors.
Conclusion
- The feed feature is not solving any problem for our users
- There are opportunities: Integration with sensors and other software or focus on cost calculation feature.
📣 PM therefore decided not to continue to develop the feed feature but instead focussing on the other barn sheets (inventory, injectable, water medication etc
Challenge and Impact
💬 “ Tomorrow we have a call with customer A. At the end if we have 10 mins left, then you can do some user research?” - Marketing and Sales
The UX maturity in the organisation is low. Sales and marketing are very skeptical with user research because:
- Prior to me, they worked with UI designers, who always jumped right to high fidelity mock up and prototypes
- Always ended up not implementing what was shown because the solution did not solve users problems
- Sale/marketing have a feeling that we never delivered, or taking really long - and that we give wrong expectations to customers
- Always ended up not implementing what was shown because the solution did not solve users problems
- Sale/marketing have a feeling that we never delivered, or taking really long - and that we give wrong expectations to customers
In order to get their buy-in, I created a research plan 📋 detailing research objectives, corresponding activities and outcome.
Upon the completion of this evaluation,
✔️ Stakeholders understood the value of UX: If we did not do research make decision base on data, we would have build something that has no value to customers and eventually need more effort to tear it down.
✔️ This case is used as a testimony in evangelizing UX in the company, as part of the journey in digitalisation.
✔️ This case is used as a testimony in evangelizing UX in the company, as part of the journey in digitalisation.