Providing the Ag industry an unified app platform to standardize and share important harvest data.
Industry
Agriculture
Role
Date
2024 - Current
Product handover during harvest season causes massive blind spots for fresh fruit and produce.
Agriculture is data driven, yet every player in the industry uses a different set of standards. Fruit is picked by the piece, packaged by the bin, then sold by the pound. Each transition of the product creates new data points in different units, delivered in scattered spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls.
The average grower is inundated with documents and data, yet doesn't have a practical way to track their product. This is compounded by the time-sensitive nature of fresh produce — even if meaningful data is eventually parsed, it's usually too late to act. This results in loss of product, quality control issues, and inefficient sale cycles during busy harvest seasons.
Standardization, starting with UI
To set up for a mutli-app suite with various user types, organizations, and stakeholders, a robust and modular UI system was needed. Out of the box solutions weren't an option due to the unique needs of Agtech:
Lower than average tech literacy and familiarity
No standardized devices
A mix of operating styles, preferences, and priorities from user to user
No two peach growers are alike!
Internally, this was the team's largest project to date in terms of scale and scope, and our first opportunity to create our own in-house design system. In order to be successful, the system needed to balance ease of implementation, usability, modularity, and flexibility.
Prioritizing Data Visualization
Another essential part was data visualization and communication. Data visualization has historically been one of the most neglected areas in Agtech, and was the biggest opportunity to provide value to users. A well-labeled, easy to read chart provides instant context and understanding to a user that is difficult to parse from traditional spreadsheets.
