Mobile Record Keeping Device for the Greenhouse

length: 3.5 months

Problem

Farmers find it hard to manage routine tasks in the greenhouse because there are more than a hundred of species of plants in the greenhouse which require different cares. Besides, the different sprouts are difficult to identify.

 

Design

In2green is a mobile device that allows farmers to identify plants through scanning barcodes or selecting plant locations, and to assign and read tasks, while keeping records for organic certification, production analysis, and other marketing purposes. Greenhouse work intensely involves physical movements, therefore ergonomic comfort were also considered in the design.

 

Design Process

Participatory design session were conducted with the farm owner and the farmers to discuss and develop our greenhouse record keeping concepts, to review their needs, and to discuss how they envision to use these concepts in the greenhouse. Besides, I was particularly involved in leading the Information Architecture process, in which we identified the roles of different users, their tasks flow and requirements, the screens needed for the design and the flows of the screens.

 

What was my role?

I facilitated the brainstorming session. To think out of box, we used different household items as subjects for inspiration and hold multiple rounds of 10-minute brainstorming sessions. We brought back these ideas to a participatory design session with the stakeholders to gather more requirements. After more exploration, we settled on a design. I led the team to use the data we gathered to do a Task Flow analysis and Information Architecture to identify the screens we will need for the design.