The design of the Irish Farmers Portal aimed to create a seamless and user-friendly interface that supports Bord Bia's mission to promote Ireland's food industry through market development, sustainability, and the Origin Green initiatives, enhancing the global visibility and accessibility of high-quality Irish products.
Bord Bia promotes Ireland's food industry with market development, sustainability, and Origin Green initiatives showcasing high-quality products globally.
The Origin Green Division would like to redesign its farmer portal page in line with Bord Bia’s overall digital strategy. At present, beef, lamb and dairy farmers currently access Bord Bia services through this page: farm.bordbia.ie
The Origin Green Division would like to redesign its farmer portal page in line with Bord Bia’s overall digital strategy. At present, beef, lamb and dairy farmers currently access Bord Bia services through this page: farm.bordbia.ie
We began the project by formulating a problem statement, which helped us clearly define the specific challenges that required addressing through the redesign. To establish a solid foundation for the redesign process, we conducted a problem statement workshop, involving 6-8 participants. Each individual actively contributed to defining the problem by participating in a brainstorming exercise. During this workshop, participants created scenarios to better understand and identify the issues that needed solving. The workshop not only allowed us to gain valuable insights but also enabled stakeholders to comprehend the purpose and objectives of the project.
Sam / Under 55 - Future focus
John / Above 55 - Compliant ethical
Farmers need support with sustainability regulations, notifications about audit process, and better understanding of the portal's purpose and usage.
Farmers need support with sustainability regulations, notifications about audit process, and better understanding of the portal's purpose and usage.
Encourage farmers to use the portal, reduce admin fees, update business details, and cut emissions.
In summary, we examined the analytics data to gain valuable insights into the current performance of the existing portal and to understand user behavior, identify pain points, and discover areas for improvement. However, there were some areas that were not possible to track, leading to a lack of insights into those specific aspects.
The analytics results indicate that 54% of users accessed the website from mobile devices, while 46% used desktop computers. In terms of gender distribution, 57.5% of users were male, and 42.5% were female. The user base consisted of 56% new users and 44% returning users. These statistics provide valuable information for our redesign efforts to cater to the diverse user base and improve their overall experience.
Based on actual data from research, we have created four user personas to represent our target audience. We created to user personas and as we progress with our redesign, these user personas will play a crucial role in guiding our decision-making process. By understanding their unique needs, preferences, challenges, we can tailor the farmer portal to provide a seamless and user-friendly experience.
We have started our review of similar industry websites to help us to understand what users are used to interacting with and what they currently experience when trying to find resources and information.
Content grouping according to sectors. Is a strong pattern and help users to find content related to their sector.
Cross-sell is an important aspect.
Keep registration simple and only request user data that is absolutely necessary.
Helps user to quickly access information that is important to them and track progress.
We also conducted a heuristic evaluation, a popular method for analysing user experience in a finished product.
The goal of the heuristic evaluation is to identify problems in the product and propose appropriate solutions. During the review, we discovered more issues than what was initially evident in our heuristic evaluation example. To manage these issues effectively, we categorized them into high-impact and low-impact categories using a value map. This helped us determine which issues to prioritise and focus on for the redesign process. Some quick wins: Navigation should be looked at under the log in and sign up / displaying and bringing upfront the contact us for queries.
Identify as many user types as possible before mapping out user flows. Describe the different user types or user journeys on the website/application. Explain how users interact with the platform and the typical flow they follow to accomplish their tasks. Target users are created with specific scenarios to help the design team to map out user flows from a specific point. On this board, we have created scenarios and rank those scenarios where a user may be entering Farmers portal journey from the Bord Bia website.
The farmers' portal offers valuable resources, including information and government schemes for farmers. It allows them to initiate the process of becoming a farmer, prepare for an audit, or renew their existing status. The portal aims to improve agricultural practices and livelihoods by providing farmers with essential information and services in one convenient location.
By following this user flow, farmers can efficiently utilise the portal to enhance their farming experience and benefit from the available resources and support.
During the open card sorting task, we applied the Gestalt psychology principles of common region and similarity to our analysis. We noticed that many users struggled to differentiate between main subcategory product items and those listed as deal products. This insight guided our focus towards creating a clear distinction between the two categories on the website. We decided to prioritize this approach to enhance the user experience.
In this step, I start creating a visual structure for the work. During the redesign process, we maintain the same colour scheme, but we make decisions to change various elements from the original version.
The main emphasis of Structure A is to offer comprehensive guidance and valuable information to all users. It centers on sustainability and establishes a strong connection to the learning hub, highlighting its benefits and the significance of adopting sustainable practices. We demonstrate how being sustainable is crucial and how we can actively support Bord Bia's role in achieving these goals.
For the test we created 2 scenarios the version A and the B. We decided to redesign the homepage and the prototype of the journey.
We created the mobile and desktop prototypes in Figma to test with real users and get feedback.
We aim to validate that our solution meets the users' main needs while identifying oversights and improvements as early as possible. Tweaking our design at an early stage allows us to avoid carrying errors over to later, more expensive phases of the project. To accomplish this, we utilise the tool "Maze" to gather practical feedback and observations, enabling designers to make agile changes to the solution.
Throughout this phase, we continuously test the prototypes with users and collect valuable feedback, which leads to iterative improvements. After 1 week of iteration, we have a solid understanding of how the Farmers portal should work.
The purpose of this usability test was purely practical.
Unmoderated Remote - Quantitative - Usability Testing
Practical feedback report and observations for designers to make agile changes to the solution.
During the usability testing phase, we gathered valuable insights from users, allowing us to identify strengths and weaknesses in both design options. Option A demonstrated certain strengths in user engagement and intuitive navigation, while option B excelled in visual appeal and information presentation.
After careful analysis, we recognized that a singular adoption of either option A or B would not fully address all the user needs and goals. Therefore, a hybrid solution that leverages the strengths of both options emerged as the ideal approach to create a cohesive and user-centric final design.
By combining the intuitive navigation and user-friendly features of option A with the visually appealing and information-rich aspects of option B, we aim to provide users with a more enjoyable and efficient experience. This hybrid design will be thoughtfully crafted to ensure that users can easily access essential information while also being visually engaged and delighted by the interface.
