Making urban farming accessible.
We created a management program for beginner Aquaponic farmers, as well as creating an intuitive interface that even experienced farmers could use. Some of the requirements from the client were; include a “download reports” option, ability to see all actuators at a glance, ability to see data over time and a built in notification system that alerts the farmer on the different ways to maintain and fix errors.
Client: FoodE, De Cuevel
Team: Multi-disciplinary agriculture experts + Designer
Timeline: Hackathon
De cuevel, AMSTERDAM
2020


System Maps
I created a system map of a standard aquaponic farm to understand where the errors can occur, so that I could incorporate this into the UI by identifying intervention areas.
I mapped out all the options that the farmer can adjust and that could potentially go wrong in the system, and categorized it by the section of the farm. This was co-created with the client.
Lo-fi Sketch
We then created a rough site map based on the elements the brief required and our own elements we gathered based on research.


Early Prototypes
We created a “higher” fidelity UI of the elements we made, paying only attention to the layout rather than aesthetics or branding.
Wireframing
In this phase, we iterated on the previous UI with feedback from the client. This time I incorporated layout proposals for each stage.


First Draft
This was the first version of the UI. I iterated and improved this version through research, critique and adapting it to more standard application conventions. Most importantly, this was done with feedback from other UI/UX designers in my community.

First Draft
This was the first version of the UI. I iterated and improved this version through research, critique and adapting it to more standard application conventions. Most importantly, this was done with feedback from other UI/UX designers in my community.
Final Outcome
Based on all the research conducted, as well as taking my colleague’s feedback and following the heuristic methodology, this was the final outcome. This version may still have elements to improve on, but particular attention was paid in “simplifying” the interface as to not be intimidating to beginner Aquaponic farmers.

As a final deliverable, I submitted multiple main feature pages of the application. This was to serve as inspiration for the client for structure, as there are other correct ways for management systems for Aquaponic farms.
Technology
To co-create with my team, we used Miro. To design the UI’s, I used Figma.
Screen
This UI is based on the standard conventions of the current IPad Pro.