— PROJECT NAME
Seed Batch Tracking Software
— ROLE
Product Design
User research
— DATE
Jul-Nov 2022
IRON OX VISION & MISSION
To Make Food A Renewable Resource, For Everyone
Iron Ox combines indoor farming, robotics and AI to grow sustainable food at scale.
Mission is redesigning agriculture to confront its staggering environmental impacts, and adapting farming to meet our future needs by making it a precise science that lets plants reach their full potential.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
A Journey into Hydroponics and Robotics
I joined the team at Iron Ox to design and develop internal software applications. Throughout the design process, I gained valuable insights into hydroponic farming, learned about the science of growing plants, and had the opportunity to visit two Iron Ox greenhouses in Gilroy CA, and one in Austin TX.
I got the opportunity to collaborate with numerous knowledgeable and passionate experts in plant science and robotics. As an added perk, I enjoyed tasting a variety of delicious produce.
Optimizing Crop Traceability from Seed to Harvest
At Iron Ox, a seed batch signifies a specific type of crop that is seeded on a given day. Initially, we tracked this information using a combination of Google Forms, Google Sheets, and OTS software. However, this approach conflicted with our company’s goals for data integrity and architecture, and it lacked the scalability needed to support our growing business and technological platform.
We realized that to effectively trace a crop from seed to harvest, we needed a more robust solution. This meant being able to link crops to their respective modules and document all actions performed on them, such as top-offs. By adding these features, we could unlock numerous use cases and ensure seamless tracking and management of our crops.
The new software aimed to address our challenges by eliminating the reliance on OTS software and Google Sheets, thereby ensuring our data systems are reliable and scalable. This upgrade aligned with our company's strategic objectives and significantly enhanced our ability to monitor crop performance, ensure traceability, and uphold high food safety standards.
The What
Enable management of the entire lifecycle of a plant, from seed to harvest.
The Why
For Grow: Growers and Plant Scientists need visibility into the complete journey of the crop for performance monitoring and traceability.
For Data: Connecting multiple data points will enhance data modeling and reporting capabilities.
For Operations: This will allow tracing crops from harvest back through their greenhouse journey, providing essential recall capabilities for food safety.
The How
Design an administrative interface for managing high-level crop metadata (stages, timings, names, etc.), tailored to each specific greenhouse.
PERSONAS
We identified the primary target users:
- Growers
- Plant Scientists
- Farm Crew
- Green House Operations
This being an internal tool really helped us to quickly reach out to these specific roles and set up in person interviews to better understand the user's needs, goals, pain points and behaviors.
CROP JOURNEY
USER INTERVIEWS
Talking directly with users in the greenhouse helped us uncover, understand, and prioritize problems. Building bridges with our users meant we could collaborate with them and have tight feedback loops when building solutions for Seed Batch Tracking.
Key learnings
- Many spreadsheets and tools to keep track of crops and ops
- Lack of data and stability makes long-term planning hard
- Limited visibility on what other team members such as Plant Science is working on in the farm
- Can’t see crop journey in one place
- Entering data into spreadsheets is hard
- Currently impossible to back track a food & safety recall to the seed batch
- Plant Science needed a better way to collect data about R&D crops in the greenhouse
- Modules where traceable in the farm but no visibility on what crop was in it
- It was frustrating to forecast sales without having an holistic overview of what was going on in the farm
DESIGN
PROCESS
We began by examining how data was captured internally using Google Sheets and OTS software solutions. Recognizing that most software development had been engineering-driven, we made it a priority to involve the engineering team from the start.
To ensure a comprehensive approach, we organized several brainstorming sessions with key stakeholders. During these sessions, we discussed various ideas, gathered insights, and considered different perspectives. This collaborative effort allowed us to identify key requirements and challenges early on.
Based on these discussions, we evaluated potential solutions and collectively decided on the best path forward. This thorough and inclusive process ensured that our product design was well-informed, technically feasible, and aligned with our overall goals.
EARLY DESIGN EXPLORATIONS
I generated design concepts by creating quick sketches and low-fidelity wireframes, aiming to effectively communicate our ideas to the Product Manager. In the process of creating the user flow, we focused on two key aspects:
This approach enabled us to streamline the workflow for our personas.
Production
A table view of all seed batches that has been created and are in different stages of crop development. This view will be used by farm workers to move crops from one stage to another. Also used by other personas such as greenhouse manager to get an overview of what is going on in the farm and whats coming to forecast sales and to meet operation goals and targets.
Growers will use this view to create new seed batches and print labels for tracking. This solution will trace crops to the tray level. This is very important because we could connect the data of the crop from the things that it has been impacted its life cycle such as nutrient, light and location in the farm.
Crop set up
To define the crops we grow and their grow recipes. This would be used by Growers or Plant Science team to set up new crop information for either production or research. This will define what stages a particular crop will go through and the length of each stage.
USER FEEDBACK
& TESTING
In our design process, ongoing user feedback played a crucial role. We maintained a direct line of communication with our users through Slack, ensuring that any questions or inquiries about farm processes were quickly addressed. Additionally, we regularly involved our user personas in each design phase, seeking their input to enhance our solutions and better meet their needs.
Based on insights gathered from MVP user interviews, we identified several requested features to enhance our product:
- Empower users to act on grow recipe notes effectively
