Cultivating the conversation for digitalisation in Agriculture with user research
Agriculture is a complex and technologically driven sector going through rapid change, and it’s one that is relatively new to mainstream user research. There is no shortage of design challenges within this domain: lack of internet connectivity, considerable information uncertainty, and users are often faced with decisions that have significant financial implication for their livelihood. Many well-intended tools have been introduced in recent years, but with little uptake. In this presentation, we’ll look at the challenges when designing for the Agricultural user community and suggest how user research can inform the value proposition behind the tools being developed for the marketplace. In addition, we’ll present a body of user research currently being undertaken in the agricultural domain. We will highlight problems being faced by diverse areas of the land sector such as growing crops in changing weather conditions and diversifying farm production to include carbon farming methods- using these as examples where user research can guide and inform product development and implementation.