Cargill customers lacked a dedicated tool to track and manage their crop inputs business, forcing them to rely on busy sales representatives for time-sensitive business information. This created inefficiencies, delayed decision-making, and hindered their ability to access critical data.
A website that showcases financial account information and documents that crop inputs customers have with Cargill. Allowing users quick visibility to their documents and information, informing their operational decisions effeciently.
When given this project, I was handed preliminary research performed by the stakeholders. With their insights, I was able to establish key features for the Crop Inputs Site.
Our discovery sessions consisted of understanding the needs for each feature and what role it plays for both a Cargill customer and a sales representative. After each session, I would update our roadmap with findings and create wireframes to be presented at the next session in order for our team to align on data and development requirements.
For each discovery session, I would conduct a SWOT analysis on the feature we would be discussing and compare it to pre-existing Cargill products.
I touched base with other UX/UI designers at Cargill to understand their experience with similar products they have worked with. This cross-collaboration opened up the opportunity to pass around and present ideas with designers before showcasing them to stakeholders as a potential solution.
This step was a key proponent to preparing me for any concerns or questions during discovery sessions.
After the stakeholders approved my proposed wireframes, I built out two key pages in a higher fidelity and worked with developers to create a functioning prototype. After debugging the prototype, I worked with my project manager to find a testing group.
One of my main goals of conducting this test was to ensure that the product easy to use for our users as many of them are older with a preference for paper book keeping rather than digital. Another goal of mine is to ensure their needs are met with the product and what can elevate their experience further.
We were able to conduct this test with 12 users and their insights propelled our project forward, providing more concrete metrics for our product’s success.
Terminology and interactions used in other Cargill products needed to be carried over to increase user adoption of our product. New terms or phrases for something the user already understands causes confusion and hesitation.
I found success in asking un-planned follow-up questions to users after they indicated curiosity or confusion. This allowed me to collect valuable insights into what they face day-to-day and how this tool could alleviate pressures they face.
The team’s initial assumptions was that users would want to see as much data as possible to ensure they know what each and every item on a list is. This test proved that theory wrong and allowed us to truly understand which areas needed more detailed and which could go without.
Farmers expressed extreme interest in a mobile version of the website to ensure they truly had access anywhere and any time. Farmers also mentioned that they will usually only have access to a computer at night.
Our testing group provided us with a boon of data to propel future additions to the platform to enhance the user experience. Before moving onto revising our existing prototype and developing the additional features for launch, our team touched based to prioritize the following:
With an older user-base, it was crucial that all touch targets and text were properly sized. I also made considerations to color selections and its uses.
Our user-base expressed extreme interest in a mobile version. With that in mind, each screen had to be designed mobile-first to ensure usability and consistency.
The feedback from our user group informed us of a lot of data we were missing. We had to collect more data from SAP and re-organize it to plug into our product.
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I encountered road blocks and pivots during this project. All of which gave me the opportunity to learn from each experience. I was able to apply all of the tools and lessons I’ve learned to help me quickly adapt to each challenge and overcome it.
This project sparked an interest in user research in me! Being able to conduct and lead testing in an organized manner and extracting such rich data from our testing group felt amazing. I hope to leverage my experience in future projects.
Working on a diverse team with engineers, developers, and project managers gave me insight into the pressures each role faced. This allowed me to provide further considerations to ensure everyone on the team is able to meet their respective goals. I was also able to quickly bond with and get to know team members through understanding their work load and considering solutions that benefit us all.
I was able to excel in this project due to the amount of planning and documentation I had. At each step, I would plot out a road map and create summaries of each step for my future self to reference. I also took the time to document each meeting to ensure no information slipped through the cracks and all questions were followed-up on.
I'd love to collaborate with you! Whether your product involves research or design, I'll dive in and keep your project moving.