Designing a Smart Communication Tool for Agricultural Engineers in Large-Scale Farms
Smart Farming
In large-scale farms located in remote areas, agricultural engineers face critical challenges in communicating with their managers. Due to poor or no network connectivity, phone calls are often not feasible. WhatsApp, while commonly used, lacks the structure to handle the volume and complexity of information exchanged daily. This creates gaps in coordination, delays in task management, and difficulties in tracking performance.
Client
Copay Bank
Role
Visual Design UI & UX Design
Industries
Communication
Date
Feb 2022
To address this challenge, we began with in-depth conversations with key stakeholders. They walked us through the daily operations on the farms and highlighted the essential role of the agricultural engineer. We also reviewed the current version of the Platform App and discussed its major shortcomings in facilitating smooth communication and task tracking.
A key insight was the importance of 11 core activities performed by agricultural engineers (e.g., irrigation, fertilization, pest control, etc.). These activities shape the engineer's daily responsibilities and needed to be central to the product experience.
The stakeholders suggested a modular interface where engineers could customize their dashboard—adding or removing activity blocks, much like Notion or Asana. We also explored how the web version could serve as a command center for farm managers to receive reports and assign tasks.
With a clear understanding of the stakeholders’ goals, I conducted competitive research. Surprisingly, I found that existing solutions primarily focused on farm management, not real-time communication in remote, large-area farms. This validated the uniqueness of our challenge.
Next, I engaged with the end users—agricultural engineers—via calls and chat. I began with demographic questions, followed by deep dives into their daily workflows and current communication habits. Most reported using WhatsApp, handwritten reports, or phone calls to contact their supervisors.
Initially, users didn’t express strong frustration with these methods. However, once I introduced the idea of a structured, activity-based communication app, they quickly recognized its potential benefits: improved clarity with laborers, better response to changing weather conditions, and reduced misunderstandings in daily reporting. To capture these insights, I created an empathy map, helping to guide our user-centric design approach.
Combining user research and stakeholder discussions, we identified a clear product direction: the core experience should revolve around sending and receiving structured activity reports. We then conducted an ideation session and mapped out the primary user flows. One key insight was that labor evaluations made the most sense at the end of each task and should be optional. Additionally, access to the scan button (used for quick task input) was added directly to the home screen for convenience.
Given our target users are not highly tech-savvy, we focused heavily on simplicity and clarity in the design. We introduced a wizard-style interface for every activity, breaking down tasks into clear, step-by-step actions. This design choice helps users stay oriented and reduces cognitive load.
We were very careful about making the experience so simple as long as our user isn't a high-tech person, that's explains why we used the wizard concept in every activity, so the user can realize that the task is divided into steps. Through close collaboration with stakeholders, in-depth user research, and iterative testing, we developed a smart, modular communication solution tailored to the realities of agricultural engineers working in large remote farms. Our approach centered around their core activities and focused on simple, guided experiences—a major leap from unstructured WhatsApp chats and hard-to-track calls.