Project: Acres Role: Research, Design, Prototyping Duration: 8 Weeks
Overview
Acres is an app our team prototyped with the intention of connecting farmers with those interested in buying local products. The app provides a platform for a community of growers and shoppers. During the 2 months of working on this project, we used Lean UX (Lean User Experience) design as a means to develop Acres. Tatiana Bell has been bringing Acres to life with her previous work that researched the farming industry. It is through this class that we were able to bring the Acres concept to an interface and test it.
Challenges
1) There was a delay in receiving IRB approval to begin interviews outside of class
2) Adjusting to the pace of Lean UX in an online-based collaborative setting
3) Recruiting farmers for interviews was difficult at times
4) Prototyping hygiene took time to organize at first through agreeing on layouts and reorganizing prototype interactions
Meet the Team
Amari Douglas
Team Member
Tatiana Bell
Scrum Master
Yanci Pengelly
Team Member
Mia Wimbish
Team Member
For some, grocery stores like Kroger and Walmart exist within reach for convenience. These grocery stores usually have a selection of vegetables, fruits, breads etc. for its customers. While these foods are often found at reasonable prices, one may question where these foods come from. The disconnect that can form when there is no relationship with the origins of one's food is one of our motivations for creating Acres.
This app would allow people to cultivate a connection with where their food comes from through subscribing to farmers. Another motivation for Acres is that farmers can have a social media tool to easily showcase their products to potential customers. Farmers would also have resources to reach out to other farmers for tips and advice relating to their work.
Background
Adapting Lean UX
For this class project, Lean UX was adapted into a series of 2 sprints that would each last 3 weeks. This process helped us evaluate our product's features to discover and measure its value. I will be going through the breakdown of what those weeks entailed for our team as well as the work I contributed in the sprints.
Lean UX is a combination of Lean Startup and Scrum to intentionally develop a product at a rapid rate through team collaborations.
Scrum is used for software management and product development by functioning by iterations and increments.
User experiences were created through iterations of MVPs (minimum viable products). Once this feedback is received, the team can the move on to other areas of functionality that were not as pertinent at the time. The MVP is also a way to test assumptions as soon as possible which is key in Lean UX.
MVPs are created by design teams who are in need of feedback on specific functions of a product.
Sprint 1
The sprints, over the coarse of the project, was a time for collaborative work and assigned tasks to get done individually. During the 1st sprint, we would meet multiple times on voice calls and video chats.
A sprint is a span of time where work is completed to meet the team's desired goals in creating a product.
Included in this sprint is:
-
Communicating assumptions and hypotheses
-
Creating our Proto-Persona 1
-
Storing gathered information in backlogs
-
User interviews and testing
-
Starting a low-fidelity prototype with wireframes
We made sure to rapidly test out assumptions by applying the feedback we received. The tools used for this rapid testing were interviews, each done by a teammate, that would help us better understand our users and a card sort that displayed features anticipated to bring desired product outcomes. Those who were interviewed placed the cards with features in order of what they would like to achieve through Acres. When the 4 interviews were finished and we analyzed our findings, we noticed that social media features such as like-post were not prioritized as much as the marketplace and location feature. These interviews were dicussed in meetings as
Our team meetings was a time where we could talk out any ideas we had for Acres as well as opinions on the direction we were going with the app. While we did video chats and voice chats, we would be working on tasks in our Miro team board. As we adjusted to the rhythm of Lean UX, the more room there was for product discovery and shared understanding.
Product Problem and Assumptions
A product problem template was completed to define the reasons a solution is needed for marketing in the farming industry. While this solution was stated, the template did not need a specific solution yet. The focus of the template was on the current state of the industry as well as, existing issues, and what the area of focus would be for our team.
Our assumptions were discussed and written out in an assumptions template. This was done individually on our own template before we brought our answers together into one final template. Similar assumptions was carried over as well as novel assumptions that brought new perspectives. Our template was divided into business and user assumptions where areas such as customer needs, product risks, and product behavior were explored.
Proto-Persona 1
The 2 personas created in this first proto-persona were made with the understanding that they were subject to constant change as research continued. Tania, who we decided would be a buyer, is a 30-year-old art teacher. One of her needs is food security for her family. Our farmer persona is Dale who is 43-years-old and one of the needs listed for him representation on social media platforms.
Backlogs
Our product backlog was a list of items that we needed to do. A way to easily map out these items was through affinity mapping. The focus of the backlog was what we believed the user could achieve by using certain features. Tania and Dale's desired outcomes was further defined for a better idea of the necessary structure the wireframe would have.
Design
During the design phase of sprint 1, we worked on wireframing and prototyping based on the feedback that came from the 4 interviews conducted during those last 2 weeks. Our work was divided among the team during meetings. I listed features for the interview's card sorting, wireframed the app's marketplace, in-app shopping, and information from post section.
The team decided that implementing tags throughout the prototype would be beneficial to the needs of both proto-personas using the app. So we kept the tags at the top of the screen for convenience. I added an in season section to the farmer's post for curious users who want to learn more about a posted product's season. For the marketplace profile, I made 3 image placeholders so that farmer's can showcase their featured products and created what the marketplace filter page would look like if a user clicked the berry tag.
Prototyping Acres moved over from Miro to Figma to create a high-fidelity prototype. We brought over our wireframes to slowly make adjustments from our interviews, create uniformity between screens, and brainstorm color palettes.
While we had yet to interview farmers as we waited for IRB approval, university students were interviewed to see if their experiences with local foods and needs were being represented in our buyer from proto-persona 1. Some of the questions we prepared for the students were about seeing how familiar they were with community-supported agriculture (CSA), what factors drew them to particular grocery stores, and if they would be interested in app that gave them access to local products.
The interviews from this sprint had taught us that:
-
the students found the marketplace, search, and location features to be more important than the social media functions such as the like a post feature
-
most of the students were not familiar with CSAs
-
convenience was important when choosing a place to grocery shop
We wanted to build a community by making Acres familiar to the favorite social media platforms the students mentioned. However, we realized that the community for this app could grow organically in other ways such as subscribing to favorite farmers, chat functions in a resources tab, and direct communication with farmers when ordering a product. We also did not want to assume our user's knowledge of the farming industry so we talked out ways to information on the farming industry like CSAs accesible to users. The interviews were extremely valuable in giving our team insight on what the buyer was seeking specifically within our app.
Sprint 2
During sprint 2, research and prototyping continued on during a period of 3 weeks before the team's deadline. We had received approval from the IRB for interviews to be done outside of the class with farmers. In this sprint we reflected on what we learned from the 1st sprint's interviews and the interviews in this sprint to see what layouts and features and needed to be updated.
Included in this sprint is:
-
Revalidating previous problem and product templates
-
Creating our proto-persona 2
-
User interviews and testing
-
Designing a high-fidelity prototype
-
Creating our proto-persona 3
Revalidation
There were multiple meetings done on discord and our Miro team board to revalidate what we've done in sprint one. Our initial problem statement remained relevant from our research. We made changes to the product backlog as new features became prioritized to achieve desired outcomes.
Beforehand, advertising CSAs within marginalized communities was placed as number 1 in the product backlog. Our research brought about the realization that our top priority should shift to making sure our users can get the access they need to local food through the marketplace. We also noticed that our users were interested in leading a healthy lifestyle. This lead us to bring the backlog item pertaining to community health consciousness up to number 2.
I turned the information section of the post into an overlay when wireframes were revalidated. Additionally, I included more features to test out that could be beneficial to users such as nutritional information and product ratings. I also redid the marketplace and checkout screens.
One of the users we interviewed in this sprint, discussed how he frequently used information-centered social media like Reddit to find out anything he's curious about. I worked on the wireframe of the resources tab, looking at the user interfaces of Yahoo! Answers and Reddit for inspiration on how their frameworks could work in the resources section. I ended up creating a toggle as a straight-forward entrance to the resources from the user's feed. This section would encourage discussions from a proposed question and answer format.
Proto-Persona 2
Our proto-personas were updated from the previous sprint. Changes were mostly applied to Tonia because that's the kind of persona we had been interviewing. We made her background more similar to the student's we interviewed so that our persona can match the research we covered. The titles buyer and farmer were changed to shopper and grower for the personas.
Design
During sprint 2's stages of research and prototyping, we learned more about the farming industry through interviews with someone who was a full-time farmer, a gardener looking to become a farmer, a volunteer for farms, and the stakeholder of Acres who created the idea.
Questions used during these interviews included asking about the food systems they participate in, their experience with the marketing and distribution of their goods, and if social media plays a part in a how their goods are marketed.
The interviews taught us that:
-
The individuals we interviewed were motivated to farm because it is a cultural pastime that has always been a part of their family
-
The farmer and gardener did see some value in using social media to market their business and even will come up with strategies to get the most out of this marketing tool
-
Having volunteer work be a payment option would need to be more detailed since farm volunteer work varies in levels of difficulty
The final prototyping involved dividing work among eachother in the team while still not being confined to one section of the app if a team member wanted to make the designs consistent. I mostly worked on creating opportunities for marketing and volunteers in the prototype. I also finished up the final screens for the information overlay and collaborated on the marketplace with my team member Tatianna.
For the volunteer application, I made it an optional choice the user can go for in their profile setup. I wanted the user to see that there is a lot that could go into the volunteer work that should be anticipated while giving them the chance to communicate the work they are comfortable with in the application. This is because our interviews did open our eyes to how time-consuming yet rewarding volunteer work can be. This also gives the farmer the ability through Acres to decide who works at their farm in exchange for products.
Proto-Persona 3
Our final proto-persona was updated after transitioning from the persona needs and solutions we previously discovered. In this proto-persona, the shopper and the grower each have more relevant background information based on the users we interviewed.
In proto-persona 1, a shopper solution was them finding foods they want and detailed information on its production. A specified this solution in proto-persona 2 and 3 by saying it is the filters that help users find particular farmers, produce, and places along with its information. Talking to those with experience in growing products brought up the services of shared sources of food such as community fridges. These spaces provided greater accessibility which is why we reworded the shopper's "need of access to spaces for people to purchase local food" to say, "resources on local community food sharing spaces and events."
Moving Forward
As soon as I began adapting to the process of Lean UX, I found the constant tweaking and testing of Acres to be a great pace for seeing product possibilities. Not sitting too long with a plan, knowing it is subject to change, made the ideation experience a very open one to speak on any assumptions with my team. It was wonderful to see our team Scrum Master's, Tatianna's, hard work from previous research projects become more of a tangible platform. As a team, hearing about the realities of being a farmer while also seeing the shopper's viewpoint on local products was very helpful. These were overall majot steps in knowing how we can help authentically grow a community in Acres.