Illumitex — Mobile
An On-the-Ground Mobile App for Farmers
In the summer of 2020, Illumitex—a well-known LED lighting supplier in the grow-space—had recently released a new web app and service named FarmvisionAI. It helped indoor growers monitor, diagnose, and gain insights about their plants. It was great in a web interface, but lacked usability on mobile platforms. With most of the work on the farm happening on foot, mobile devices were the main tool for data collection.
I was part of the team designing on-the-ground digital workflows to help connect plants with their data.
Role
Lead UI/UX & Product Designer
Tools
• Sketch • Adobe After Effects • Adobe Illustrator • SwiftUI
Client
Illumitex
Date
2019 - 2021
The Challenge
Following the release of Illumitex’s web application version 2, it was starting to become clear from surveys and feedback that there was a missing element in the growing ecosystem. Our web application reported specific problems with plants, but without an easy way for farmers on the ground to communicate their observations with leads and horticulturists. We needed to provide a method to complete the communication loop.
Ease of use is always important with app design, but especially so in this circumstance. We wanted to make sure that when farmers’ hands were full or dirty, they would still be able to fully utilize the app.
My Role
I was the lead and only designer of the mobile app for the FarmvisionAI platform from when the project started in June 2020 to December 2020 when the company had to close its doors. I was the designer for Illumitex’s web app as well and designed new features for that product in tandem with designing the mobile app. I collaborated with the Director of Software and various other team members on the feature-sets and app layout.
An Influx of Data
The web app at the center of Illumitex’s FarmvisionAI platform was a full-featured dashboard with a large number of widgets and interfaces. It was well-suited for a large screen and designed to give the user access to as much information as possible. Because of the large influx of information, it maximized access, allowing the user to seamlessly navigate whatever information they needed.
The web app’s strength proved to be a struggle when approaching the mobile application. We had run experiments porting the web app or elements of the web app to mobile, but they always resulted in user confusion and frustration at the overwhelm of information and cluttered interface.
Simplifying
Looking for solutions, it became clear that we were missing a fundamental element.
With further analysis of the information we could provide, we realized that the user for the web app and the user for the mobile app were in fact different personas. We worked to further flesh-out each persona separately.
Our initial belief was that we were just building out a version of the web app for a smaller screen. Instead, we found that the information and user experience needed varied from persona to persona. Our target users for the web app were horticulturists and project leads not physically present at the grow-site, meaning they were looking for more detailed information. The target users for the mobile app physically walked around the farm and needed a simpler way to see reports and feedback from the web app—while still making reports of their own. They were two tools of a larger ecosystem. With this new note-taking/reporting app defined, we were able to move to wire-frames.
Visual Development
We built out the visual language for the mobile app, matching the visual language for the web app, but also sticking to more conventional mobile standards. With testing and feedback, we transitioned the wire-frames to full-fledged mock-ups.
This was then developed into a pixel-matched version for iOS.
Cut Short
The story unfortunately has a sad ending. As we started to release the app for further testing, the company started to begin the process of closing its doors. Illumitex was as an LED light manufacturer that had started FarmvisionAI to modernize their own business pursuits, a startup inside a larger company. While we didn’t get time to test our impact, the small amount of feedback we did receive was encouraging. The world of agriculture technology is ripe for modernization that can help the industry become more economically and environmentally efficient. I’m curious to follow its bright future.