A step towards responsible farming

Cotton farming in India has a footprint on the global ecosystem. The World Wildlife Fund with support from IKEA stepped up to help reduce the environmental impact by allowing farmers to use their smartphones to access scientific data and expert advisory.

"Utkarsh, why aren't farmers using such a helpful app?"

Sumit Roy the director at WWF told me about the Cotton Doctor app created to provide weather and crop advisory to help famers with crop yields and reduce climate impact.

But despite its powerful advantages, the app had very low adoption and usage.

My job was to figure out the reasons behind this by understanding the farmers perspective and design something that farmers would find reliable and enjoyable.

Understanding how farmers were using smartphones

I spent 3 months doing primary research, travelling to multiple villages and living alongside the farmers. I shared their daily morning 'chai' and evening walks. I wanted to closely observe how they interacted with their smartphone.

Contrary to secondary research, I found that most of them used smartphones daily and liked to use Facebook, Google Maps and WhatsApp.

Being on the ground also exposed me to new issues like unreliable mobile networks and using a touchscreen with dirty hands which later led to designing solutions like offline mode, SMS updates and voice interfacing.

Reason behind not using the current app

The primary barriers to using the app were its complexity and language.

During formal interviews, many farmers said they were using the app and it was very useful (despite the numbers suggesting otherwise)

But after few more chats, it was revealed that whenever they opened the app, everything was in English and they didn't see anything familiar and their brains would automatically disengage.

The original data available on the app

A simplified, heat-map like design on top of a google map like representation

Rapid Prototyping to find delightful moments that build user motivation

Engagement with many digital products is based on the intrinsic motivation of the user. And to build motivation, I needed to identify moments where I could create delight and familiarity.

I used Rapid Prototyping with Figma to create and test designs with farmers everyday, and changed my designs based on their feedback through nightly revisions. My process being centred around the farmers' feedback made them feel valued and produced a design that resonated well.

Dashboard for scientific advisors to manage thousands of farmers

The solution also needed the scientific advisory team to send tailored advice to farmers. It needed multiple user types, and broadcast tools for individual farmers or thousands at once. The goal was to design a dashboard that would handle complex tasks in an effortless way, to reduce errors and confusion.

The re-designed cotton doctor app

A unified brand identity & design system for a holistic experience

To make Cotton Doctor approachable across all touchpoints, I designed a unified identity consistent across the farmer's app, the advisor's web platform, and any promotional materials.

What I learned

Direct engagement with the farmers taught me the absolute necessity of primary user research instead of relying solely on secondary research.

More importantly, this project highlighted the significance of emotional understanding in design, as overcoming the language barrier significantly reduced the app's perceived intimidation factor, making it more inclusive and respectful to the farmers.