Digital Saathi (Farmer App)
Target audience
- Age: 20 to 60 years old
- Small-landholder Grain Farmers
- Progressive Farmers
Team
- 1 Product designer
- 1 Tech lead
- 2 Product managers
- 5 Engineers
- 5 Product Owners
- 48 Ground Team
Target area
- Davangere, Karnataka (India)
- Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh (India)
Project duration
- 2 years 5 months
Need
Business need
- Improve the economic well-being of smallholder farmers and involve them in the digital economy of today's era.
- Establish a supportive ecosystem for farmers, enhancing their productivity and profitability.
User need
- Obtain information about the nearest market and current crop prices.
- Quickly identify crop pests/diseases and access preventive measures.
- Monitor crop health to optimize production and increase yield per acre.
- Accurate weather updates.
- Ensure fair value realization of crops, avoiding exploitation by middlemen/traders.
- Access quality agricultural inputs at competitive rates, reducing travel time and avoiding retailer commissions.
- Connect with other farmers to share and address crop-related challenges.
- Stay informed about daily agricultural news, government schemes, and nearby events like expos and agricultural fairs.
Design Process
Discover and Define
User research
Here we have understood the pain points, behaviors, needs, motivations, and preferences of users.
- Methods: Interviews, surveys, observations
- Interviewed: 30 Farmers
- Progressive: 22 Farmers
- Apps used: Facebook, Whatsapp, Youtube and other agri apps
Competitor research
I conducted thorough competitive and market research, analyzing major competitor’s products to understand their functionality and processing methods. This informed our app’s feature prioritization based on user needs.
Key takeaways
- This research aided us in identifying and prioritizing the user base to target for our initial releases.
- Provide them with an agricultural technology platform that addresses their farming pain points, goals, and needs, offering reliable and transparent services.
As per our research, we have created “how-might-we” questions that helped us think of ways we could solve user’s problems.
How might we...
- How might we help the farmers connect directly to the farmer producer organisations?
- How might we show them the market price?
- How might we support farmers in optimizing their crop practices?
- How might we assist farmers in promptly identifying pests and diseases affecting their crops?
Ideate: Problem meet solution
After research, brainstorming and idea generation, we have come up with important features, that would solve user’s current needs and problems and prioritize the features by applying Muscow method.
MuSCoW method
We used MoSCoW method to group each of our feature ideas from most essential to least essential, based on our data and the problems we found that our users were experiencing.
Agri e-commerce market (Agri Input market)
Users get access quality crop products at a reasonable rate.
Crop sell market (Agri output market)
Get better value realization of their crop.
Forum
Post issues/problems, connect with other farmers.
Farm advisory
Agri experts provide advice on crop practices.
My farms
Farmers can add their farm details.
Identify diseases and generate information about the crops.
News
Know about daily agri news.
Market price
Stay informed about market prices.
Weather card
Accurate weather in real-time
Prototype and Test
“If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 meetings.”
— Tom & David Kelley
- Test Methodology – Guerrilla test, Problem discovery, A/B testing
- Participants – 20 people
Version -1
Usability test findings
- Agri Output: Users were finding difficulty in placing sell orders.
- Market Price: Users are happy to see distance-wise and price-wise, max average and minimum price of their crop.
- Little big cards: If other service will come, then scrolling will be more.
Final version
Incorporated user feedback into the second sample and organized the services into categories. We adjusted the layout slightly to accommodate additional services and offer banners, ensuring users are not overwhelmed with cognitive load.
Usability test findings
- Users were able to navigate to each service and quite happy to use the new layout.
- Some users are willing to take the subscription package also for better crop practices.
- Users were happy to order fertilizer, and pesticides from the Agri Input Market.
- The introduction of the Onboarding screen for the Output market and Crop doctor helped them a lot.
- Chat and Call to agri expert, resolved most of their crop problem.
Our Star Feature
Crop doctor (AI/ML tool to recognize diseases of crops)
Happy flow
Crop selection
Take photo/select from gallery
ML model analyze disease
Solution screen
Version -1
Usability test findings
- Crop Doctor: Some Users were finding difficulty in going through the flow.
- With the solution, some users requested treatments and organic control measures and how they will know what quantity they will use.
Version -2
Low fi prototype
Test findings
- The introduction of the onboarding screen and help video helped users a lot.
- New farmers were easily navigated through the flow.
- Happy to find the instant problem and solution for their infected crop.
- Farmers can calculate the amount of chemicals required per acre.
The Impact
User engagement increases:
- Session duration increase in New Homepage: 11%
- Adoption rate increases after implementation of
onboarding screen and help videos: 20% - Bounce rate decreases: 40%
Playstore data:
- App installation: 50K+
- Ratings: 4 stars
