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DHRUV GUPTA

KONRAD GROUP

DESIGN THINKING CHALLENGE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Design Challenge Recap
• Design Thinking Framework
• Empathize
• Problem Space
• Opportunity
• Define
• Stakeholders
• Personas
• Epics

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• Ideate
• User Stories
• Requirements Gathering
• Solution Definition
• Solution Selection Criteria
• Prototypes
• Wireframes
• Mockups
• Next Steps

DESIGN

CHALLENGE

RECAP

Design a digital solution that provides farmers the insights and information they need to boost revenue from farming in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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01

EMPATHIZE

PROBLEM SPACE

Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face a plethora of challenges that lead to substandard harvests, these include -

• Access to improved crop varieties, fertilizers, irrigation
• Access to current information
• Shorter fallow periods
• Rural-urban migration, reducing labour available
• Lack of financial support

90% of food in SSA

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70% of workforce

80% of farmland

Are made up of women [3]

Produced by smallholder farmers [2]

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Represented in the region by smallholder farmers [2]

“The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region accounts for more than 950 million people, approximately 13% of the global population. By 2050, this share is projected to increase to almost 22%, or 2.1 billion.”

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Per World-Grain.com, 2018

OPPORTUNITY

• FAO predicts agricultural market in SSA will grow from $200 billion in 2015 to $1 trillion by 2030 [1]
• Agri-tech startups have raised more than $800 million in the last six years
• Technology such as cloud computing, IoT and other digital tools have become increasingly affordable and accessible to farmers

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DEFINE

STAKEHOLDERS

• Smallholder farmers
• Farmer collectives
• Input Providers - Fertilizers, Seeds, Machinery (if available), Logistics

Personas

Smallholder farmers, farmers collective, input providers

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Occupation:

• Smallholder farmer

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Behaviour:

• Hard worker
• Creative

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Habits:

• Work from dawn until evening
• Prepare soil and nutrients
• Takes inventory of inputs required

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Motivation:

• Access to relevant information
• Increase understanding of market

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Goal:

• Increase harvest yield to earn more money

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Kagibo, 37, lives in Tanzania

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Needs:

• Monitor farm activity in real time
• Aggregated information
• Connect to input providers
• Affordable
• Easy to use

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Constraints:

• Learning curve cannot be steep
• Presented in native language
• Images as reference

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Occupation:

• Farmer collectives

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Behaviour:

• Groupthink
• Trust

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Habits:

• Meet collectively once a week
• Discuss current state of affairs in community

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Motivation:

• Increase production
• Lean on community for support

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Goal:

• Leverage community to share best practices and increase knowledge

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Needs:

• Relevant information
• Commodity prices
• Affordable
• Easy to use

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Constraints:

• Learning curve
• Presented in native language

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Occupation:

• Agro-service provider

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Behaviour:

• Passionate
• Loyal

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Habits:

• Connects with local farmers daily
• Provides inputs such as seeds, fertilizers

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Motivation:

• Help local farmers achieve more
• Entrepreneur who wants success

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Goal:

• Use her network to provide more support to smallholder farmers

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Needs:

• Connect with farmers digitally
• Provide list of her resources
• Offer dedicated support

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Constraints:

• Burdened with too many requests
• Interfere with other routine tasks

EPICS

As a smallholder farmer, I would like an easy to use mobile app which allows me to monitor my farm in real time, provide current information and connect me with input providers.

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As a farmers collective, we would like an easy to use mobile app which will allow us to have access to market information which will benefit our community.

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As an input provider, I would like an app in which I can market my services to local farmers in the region and connect with them effortlessly.

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IDEATE

USER STORIES - Smallholder farmers

As a smallholder farmer -

• I want to monitor my farm activity
• I want to search for information on the app
• I want to view services provided in my area
• I would like to track commodity prices
• I would like to connect with input providers in my area
• I would like to connect with other farmers in my area

REQUIREMENTS GATHERING

SOLUTION DEFINITION

• Device consideration
• Mobile vs. Tablet
• Chatbot service vs. App
• Needs to be affordable
• Easy to use
• Bring immediate value to users
• MVP to include must have and should have requirements

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SOLUTION A - FarmEasy

A solution which provides farmers with dashboards to monitor activities on their farm, and connects them local input providers to ensure their supply chain operates efficiently. Provide farmers with market information and localized agricultural news using third-party managed services.

SOLUTION B - StreamFarm

A solution which provides farmers with a streaming service, and leverages the community to share information on a crowd-sourced platform. Farmers can connect with their neighbours based on proximity and share resources in a convenient manner.

SOLUTION SELECTION CRITERIA

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PROTOTYPE

Wireframes

FarmEasy

ACCOUNT SET-UP

• User taken through a series of questions to set up profile
• Content tailored based on location
• App font: Roboto, modern yet simple

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EXPLORE

• Navigation bar
• Logical representation of information
• References current apps
• Farmer can monitor field conditions via dashboard
• Daily activity, presented immediately
• Use of carousels to present information

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• Services provided are also presented in this view
• Critical to the operations of the farmer
• Makes the easier for the farmer to access input providers.

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FEED

• Current information presented in bite sized articles
• Scrollable view

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MARKETS

• Increase farmer’s financial literacy to improve understanding and decision-making
• Third party service, which provides information
• Graphical view

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CONNECT

• Connect with members of the community
• Create communication channels via groups
• Clicking on a image opens a chat with the person

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Mockups

FarmEasy

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Self-Control

Food App.

DESIGN IDEA

• People use apps to solve a problem - let's develop an app for people to control the way they eat food.
• Users take picture of food and answer questions about the food they are trying to resist. Users swipe on a subset of foods every time they open the app.
• App contains four parts - take a picture, food gallery containing pictures, monthly review of foods, Tinder like swiping feature to practice resisting foods.

DESIGN GOALS

• Phase 1 - Building a food library.
• Phase 2 - Weekly reviews of foods (first iteration contained daily reviews, which have since been removed).

TECH STACK

• Android app dev - Visual Studio (C#)
• Pictures database - SQLite
• Questions/ Responses database - Excel
• Mockups - Invision, Sketch

LAYOUT AND NAVIGATION WIREFRAMES

Iteration 1

Main page - App opens directly to swiping pictures (10 random images). Main purpose of the app is accessed immediately. Remove buttons from main page to make app more intuitive.

Main page - Once user swipes all 10 pictures, app displays text notifying the user to take more pictures. Text provides more context to users and guides them to next step.

Gallery page - Displays images in tile format, split by 3 images per row. Weekly review button is static on page. Button contains red signal which notifies user to complete weekly review at the end of the week.

Iteration 2

Main page - Containing all activities of the app.

Camera page - Designed with a small circumference to focus on food.

Gallery page - Tile format with two images per row.

Swiping page - Tinder swiping format with cool down/ heat up buttons.

Swiping page - Tinder swiping format with cool down/ heat up buttons.

PHASE 1 -

BUILD FOOD LIBRARY

• Practice swiping on foods which a person to practice in a more “controlled” situation on the foods/drinks that they frequently feel a desire and tempted to eat/drink more of.
• Take pictures of foods they would be eating/drinking during the week (i.e - the foods they are also looking to resist)

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• Practice swiping - (Cooling/ making hot)

Makes food appear brighter, making food appear more enticing

Makes food appear distant, making food appear less enticing

• Practice swiping - (Swipe left/right)

User can also use a swiping gesture similar to Tinder.

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Swipe left = Avoid food

Swipe right = Eat more!

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2. Take a picture

After taking a picture, a person will answer multiple questions including:

• How much do you like this food/drink?
• How tempting this food/drink is to you?
• How healthy you think this food/drink is?
• How frequently do you eat/drink it?
• How frequently do you want to eat/drink it?

PHASE 2 -

WEEKLY REVIEWS

• The weekly review questions resembles the questions each person answers in phase 1 (Building a library activity) about each specific food/drink.
• We want to see if there were any changes in the attitude and experience of desire toward a food/drink, the frequency of eating a food (as one measure of self-regulation success).

DEMO

(ANDROID PROTOTYPE)

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Ambient.

Art Therapy App

DESIGN IDEA

• App that provides art therapy aims to ALL people regardless of age, gender, race
• Art will be in the form of music playlists, books, art posters.

DESIGN GOALS

• Introduce users to new forms of art through a simple, easy-to-use interface
• Enable users to track their mood over a period of time

• Match users with each other based on mood/art recommendation
• Foster inspiration and creativity in users.

TECH STACK

• iOS app dev - React
• Mockups - Invision

GATHERING USER REQUIREMENTS

Method #1 - Interviews

Method #2 - Use cases

METHOD #1 INTERVIEWS

Goal

• Understand the users and their familiarity their technology
• Identify features based on their needs
• Establish mental models through questions

Strategy

• Interview five people from diverse backgrounds (age, gender, profession)

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Results

• Participants have all interacted with mobile apps
• Most users found the idea of art therapy novel
• All users have interacted with some form of art

METHOD #1

SUMMARY (USER NEEDS)

• Easy and intuitive way to input mood
• Write notes about their current mood
• Short amount of time to input their mood

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• Reminders to input mood or get art therapy
• The ability to save certain art to the app
• Visual representation of inputted mood

METHOD #2

USE CASES

Goal

• Gather user requirements based on type of user

Strategy

• Define use cases based on type of user and usage of app to define functional requirements

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Results

• Provided insights on must have functional requirements in design
• Three types of navigations considered - Initial course, alternative course A, alternative course B

METHOD #2

SUMMARY (REQUIREMENTS)

Register and onboard

Users can register and receive a confirmation when successfully registered

Track mood

Users can input their mood and visually track their mood over time

Discover art

Different forms of art will be provided to the user based on their inputted mood

Connect users

Users will be matched with other users based on recommended art

LAYOUT AND NAVIGATION WIREFRAMES

Onboarding Page

• Application of “Rule of Thirds” with branding on top 2/3 of screen and registration buttons on 1/3 of screen
• Considered pill shape for button sizes

Mood Input Page

• Header: Hamburger menu for navigation, app logo and user profile
• Workspace: Buttons to input mood in centre of page to afford clickability.
• Footer: Provide visual view of user moods over time by using emojis

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Art Recommendation Page

• Header: Hamburger menu for navigation, app logo and user profile
• Workspace: Text label to reiterate current view of app
• User can view recommended art moodboards in grid layout by scrolling

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MOCKUPS

• App title
• “Rule of thirds”
• Provides main focus for page
• Native slide control for footer text
• Text margin affords slide control
• Slide control moves left, providing recall for iOS platforms
• Font: Futura
• Provides “modern” feel
• Galactic background
• Provides an immersive experience for the user

Home

• Consistent application of “Rule of thirds”
• Consistent colors and font
• Use of icons to afford recognition of login fields
• Remove redundant text
• Input fields sized based on iOS design guidelines
• User can log into app with Facebook credentials
• Follow modern app design guidelines

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Onboarding

• Header
• Contains hamburger menu, app title and user icon
• Minimalist design considered to eliminate information overload
• Body
• Contains button, big enough to afford clicking for user
• Shadow effect on the button to make it intuitive for tapping
• Consideration of text to provide a more inviting and warm user experience

Mood Input

• Header
• Consistent design
• Body
• Emojis reflecting moods (preset), fly out from once the user taps the button
• Emoji size considered to afford clicking
• User taps on an emoji (based on user’s mood)

Choose mood

• Header
• Consistent design
• Body
• Accent colour of the application changes to reflect mood selected by user
• ‘Art’ button displayed to provide art recommendations to user
• Footer
• Mood history displayed for last four days to allow user to track mood variations over time (system feedback)

Mood selection

• Header
• Consistent design
• Body
• Scrollable view containing artboards
• Each artboard consists of three different forms of art (i.e - Poster, quote, song)
• Artboard cutoff on the bottom off the screen, to recall scrolling
• Use of icons to ‘bookmark’ and ‘join conversation’ on artboards

Art curation

• Collapsible menu saves screen space
• Accessible from all pages
• Intuitive swipe controls to close menu

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Hamburger menu

USER TESTING

OVERVIEW

• Defined usability methods, goals and scripts for user tests
• Applied cognitive walkthrough and heuristic evaluation tests

• Completed user testing with five users, including young adults (20-23) and mature adults (45-50)
• User testing completed with high-fidelity mockups on Sketch

• Recorded data on user feedback during testing
• Summarized results and iterated app design using feedback

USER TESTING

GOALS

Ease of learning

• ≥ 80% of users must easily and accurately identify the emoji reflecting their mood
• ≥ 80% of users must easily describe their historical mood variation

Efficiency of use

• ≥ 80% of users must be able to navigate to certain pages in the app without vocal instruction ≥ 1 minute
• ≥ 80% of users must encounter less than two errors per task

User satisfaction

• Users must score ≥ 6 on a 7-point likert scale for satisfaction
• Users must score ≥ 6 on a 7-point likert scale for confidence

Discoverability

• Users must score ≥ 3 on a five-point likert scale for satisfaction
• Users must score ≥ 3 on a five-point likert scale for confidence

USER TESTING

METHODOLOGIES

Method #1 - Cognitive Walkthrough

Method #2 - Heuristic Evaluation

METHOD #1

COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGHS

• User tries stepping through interface pretending the interface is fully built, with help from facilitator
• Aim to find major problems within design based on areas of confusion or circuitous paths

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USER TESTING

TASK SCENARIOS

Task #1 - Log in using Facebook credentials

Task #2 - Choose a mood (happy) and describe historical mood variation given system feedback

Task #3 - Choose a mood (sad) and bookmark a recommended artboard of your choice

Task #4 - Join a conversation for a recommended artboard of your choice

Task #5 - Log out of the application

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USER TESTING

PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Speed

• Users must take ≤ 1 minute to complete a task

Accuracy

• Users must make ≤ 3 errors per task on average

Experience

• Users must have a rating of ≥ 6 regarding their experience with the app (7 point scale)

Feedback

• Users feedback must contain positive sentiment regarding the system feedback (i.e - recommended artboards, discussions etc)

USER TESTING

RESULTS

• Low error rate (1 error/per task/per user on average)
• Users take approximately 1.7 minutes to complete a task (on average)
• High satisfaction rate (satisfaction rating of 6 on average)
• High confidence rate( confidence rating of 7 on average)

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How satisfied are you to accurately input your mood and receive suggested art?

(Average rating - 6)

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How confident are you to accurately input your mood and receive suggested art?

(Average rating - 7)

“It would be really nice if the app can show art events taking place around the area!”

“The app is very easy and fun to use”

“I find the icons that represent the mood to be fun. It’s a good way to capture how I’m feeling”

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“I wish there were more icons to represent the moods”

COMPR.

Merchandise Compliance Tool

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DESIGN IDEA

• Design an application to allow buyers (formally known as Merchants) to be able to collect product information from stores, create reports and submit reports from one platform.
• Upstream stakeholders can view reports and submit approval from one platform.
• Use product information to generate insights for buyers.

DESIGN GOALS

• App should be accessible on mobile for buyers when collecting product information in stores.
• App must be accessible to iOS.
• Buyers should be able to track items they have recorded.
• Buyers should be able to create and submit compliance reports from within the app.

TECH STACK

• Frameworks - Laravel (PHP)
• Pictures database - AWS
• Web hosting - Heroku

LAYOUT AND NAVIGATION WIREFRAMES