Outcome: As the Lead Designer and Project Manager, I was responsible for leading the discovery process, which involved customer research and collaborating with Holly, our Senior Product Designer. I designed all product deliverables, including the initial version of the diary on the mobile app, future enhancements, and a major overhaul of our website experience. Continuous collaboration was essential with both internal and external stakeholders. I also managed the go-live content plan based on the value we discovered.
Discovery process
The discovery phase is essential for any project. Holly and I began by thoroughly understanding the problem at hand using my discovery template. This template was designed to guide all product designers to ask the right questions in the early stages of a project. By immersing ourselves in the context of the problem, we were able to identify the pain points of our farmers and understand which customer segments we are serving. We understand the problems by conducting internal interviews and gathering user feedback logged in Salesforce by our support staff and utilising our in-product survey tool. This feedback helps us accurately frame the problem, allowing us to group similar enhancements and identify clear problem or enhancement themes.
The majority of the feedback indicated a desire to quickly access the information they had recorded in FIQ so that they could dedicate more time to their work on the farm and spend less time in our system.
We completed a large competitor analysis of existing paper-based and digital solutions. We gathered usage data for all of our applications. This allowed us to start to outline a high-level scope for the project, and consider how we might measure our success. Adhering to Design Thinking Principles, we ensured the problem statement was user-centred and solution-agnostic. This guides the entire design process, ensuring our solutions are aligned with user needs and truly solve their problems.
Enhancement requests from customers who ring support
Enhancement requests in the Web application
The Classic app frustrating diary experience
The complexity of how different roles use the Classic app mobile diary
Research findings
Investigating the digital diary left us with more questions than answers. We knew farmers were using the Diary on the web and mobile, but not who, and most importantly why. To understand this, we conducted semi-structured exploratory interviews with twelve farmers from different FIQ subscriptions, farm types, sizes, and roles on the farm.
We found that over 50% of farmers use the diary to track key events for decision-making. Meanwhile, over 33% use it to review FIQ records — checking on staff, seeing their activities, and reminding themselves of their past actions. The diary is especially valuable for our management roles.
The farmers we interviewed for our initial exploratory research
Our initial internal stakeholder workshop
After conducting several technical workshops, we discovered that incorporating an offline diary into our offline-first app would result in lengthy load times. As an alternative, we deliberated on creating an online-only version. We confirmed with our farmers via email, and all except one indicated that an online-only version would fulfill their requirements, even though some have limited internet access on their farms.
The value and purpose of an online only diary - key takeaways from our research
The value and purpose of the calendar and list view on the web diary - key takeaways from our research
Defining the scope
After Holly stepped away from the project, I continued as the sole designer. Following our research, the initial release of the mobile Diary required the ability to display all recorded and planned activities in a list view, improve the user interface for easier navigation, and, most importantly, update all information on summaries to enable farmers to make quick decisions without having to delve into the specific recordings.
This project involved finding a balance between meeting our users' needs and our technological capabilities. Although some farmers wanted a calendar view of the Diary it was technically difficult and would require a large amount of development and testing time. We compromised with a simple list view that some farmers said they would prefer on the mobile app. We were keen to test this solution in usability testing.
I dedicated a substantial amount of time to designing the summaries, focusing on identifying the key information that should be displayed. This accounted for over 40% of all diary feedback and is where the majority of the value is delivered.
Collaborating with our graphic designer, we developed simple, easily recognisable activity icons to accompany the titles to improve accessibility. Over time, the updated UI will help farmers understand records faster, aligning with our principles of "Built for farm life" and "Every second counts."
The workings of updating the information on 3 record summaries out of the total 36
We used data to help us understand which records are the most important
This allowed us to understand what farmers are looking at the most in FIQ, and which records they are clicking into for extra information (all applications).
Our interviews revealed that farmers are most interested in stock movements, weights, health treatments, and sales & purchases. Usage data confirmed this, and that there is significantly less exploration of the list view, likely because the information is easier to see. I took this into account when designing for the Web.
First cut of the Diary on the mobile app
All 36 new icons for all records: stock, land, notes and tasks
Validating the decisions
We validated our designs and logic with multiple internal stakeholders with extensive farming knowledge, following our discovery process. We continually looped around the learn, design, test, validate loop - in total 6 times - to ensure our deliverables add value.
Once we had a clear technology understanding, I was able to usability test a realistic first cut of the Diary. The purpose of usability testing was to confirm that:
• our first cut of the diary is valuable for all management roles and our different pack offerings.
• functionality of selecting a date (agenda list) and changing the view (filters Vs search).
• the updated summary information was what the farmers needed to see.
• the updated UI design - colours, increased spacing, and icons is easy for our farmers to understand and read quickly.
Usability key takeaways
The results of the usability testing didn't reveal any major surprises, which confirmed the effectiveness of our discovery process. Our key takeaways:
• Most farmers found the new Diary interface easy to use and preferred the online-only list view and filters for quick information access.
• Adding a note to the Diary on the mobile app was highly valued.
•Data-driven managers wanted more data visibility, while farmers emphasised the importance of accessibility and quick interaction with content.
• Valuable record-specific insights were gathered.
Next Steps: I discussed the findings with tech leads and Product Owners to refine our plan and ensure the enhancements are ready for implementation.
Enhancing the website experience
While updating the API to include more information in all 36 recorded summaries, we were able to improve our web experience based on customer feedback. We updated the UI to match the mobile app and made it faster for farmers to access information by improving the calendar and list view. Additionally, we enhanced the search and filtering functionality.
Original Calendar and List view
Enhanced Calendar and List View - seeing more information upfront
To market plan
During our competitor analysis, we realised that we currently don't market the diary to farmers even though it’s the core part of our software. Our competitors do, and they have less sophisticated solutions. With the value uncovered in our exploratory research, “Replacing the paper diary” it was easy to collaborate with the marketing team to create on-farm diary content for our social and targeted ads, these link to our updated website - driving sales.
The results
The results we are tracking and expect to see 6 months after the Diary release are as follows:
• 50% increase in engagement on the IQ app compared to the classic.
• 25% decrease in views on the web, as farmers are increasingly viewing on the go.
• Clicking into events on the web will decrease by 20%, as farmers can find the information they need more quickly (on hover).
• The Stickiness of the IQ app (our guiding metric) increases by 5% because farmers are using the IQ app to view the diary every time they need to make a decision on the go in the yard/paddocks.
• The CSAT score on mobile is at least 70%.
• The CSAT score on the web is at least 10% higher than our baseline of 68%.
• 50% increase in engagement on the IQ app compared to the classic.
• 25% decrease in views on the web, as farmers are increasingly viewing on the go.
• Clicking into events on the web will decrease by 20%, as farmers can find the information they need more quickly (on hover).
• The Stickiness of the IQ app (our guiding metric) increases by 5% because farmers are using the IQ app to view the diary every time they need to make a decision on the go in the yard/paddocks.
• The CSAT score on mobile is at least 70%.
• The CSAT score on the web is at least 10% higher than our baseline of 68%.
Work completed whilst at FarmIQ