Alta is an application to help farmers reduce waste from being generated in the farms. I have used a variety of research methods to find more about the experience of farmers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, analyzed data on their process of work and understood how and why the food loss is being generated before entering the food chain. Through rounds of testing, I made a mobile application to solve the problem and expedite the process of having qualitative engagements in the farms.
Problem Statement
40% of the Food Waste takes place in the farm resulting about 20.2 billion pounds of produce never reaching the food chain because of Food Loss. The major source being the crop residues in the field due to improper harvesting because of human resource crisis is a huge issue for the small scale farming stakeholders who are unable to recruit qualitative help in the field to solve the problem. Local organizations who have stretched their hands to help the local farmers are limited to helping them by selling their harvested fruits and vegetables which get rejected by their direct sellers due to cosmetic deficiencies. Hence these smaller scale organizations need help to get more qualitative engagements who would help them reduce the food loss from being generated at the beginning of the food production chain.
Hypothesis Statement
I believe that if we build a digital platform that integrates the smaller scale farming organizations with organizations/people who are working to reduce food waste in order to work in the farm during harvest seasons, then it will reduce 50% of the labor issues in 80% of the farms within a span of 2 years, because lack of awareness is a major issue for the people who are potential to help this small scale organizations.
Site Map I
Wireframes I
User Testing I
•” Are the people in the app legally authorized to work”
• “What paper work do I have to go through after hiring them.”
• “How am I paying them?”
• “How are they agreeing to work with me?”
• “Is Jake real? Is he fine with what I am paying?”
• “What if they have some other agenda in the middle of the days.. Like a wedding?”
• “You just deducted my $300 without confirming with me!
• “I would not want to hire people for hours.. It should be on daily basis.”
• “Driver’s license is a must.”
• “I do not understand what the app is about at the start.”
• “I need to speak to people before I am paying.”
Assumptions
Talking to the farmers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were a critical insight from my interviews. I wanted to explore more in order to provide the best value proposition for both the users of the application (the farmers and the workers). So I made three assumptions.
The app will not sustain until it has enough users to participate for farming.
The value proposition of the app for the workers to get seasonal as a bonus would be as beneficial as earning easy money from the farms .
People with no farming experience will be valued equally by the farmers.
Rapid Validation
I designed 2 posters in order to validate my assumptions. One was with the value proposition of earning easy money by helping the farmers and other poster had the value proposition of seasonal bonus in return of their participation. I hung the above left poster in the Kanbar center which is the center of all the students of East Falls Campus and the other in the DEC which is study center for specific programs. I received responses from both the posters. Interestingly the responses from the poster in Kanbar were all vocal. They never ended up emailing me for the interest. But the responses from the DEC poster that had the value proposition of earning money came to me via emails asking more details showing interest to be a part of the event.
Validation Success
The volunteers and me went to a farm in New jersey and spent the whole day in the farm helping the farmers in the greenhouse and weeding the field Outside. By executing the whole process I helped me to understand the importance of executing the whole process equally well till harvesting in order to gain the best results .Most of the tasks that we performed were rigorous and redundant. Even for a small farm alot had to be covered. To my understanding the volunteers for the research did not find it difficult understand his tasks although he has very less experience doing them.
Site Map II
Wireframe II
Mood Board
Visual Design
User Testing II
• “Provide the activities or tasks to the people not us. It’s confusing as things are so connected with each other.”
• “Can I have a better idea of whom I am paying what amount. The aggregated amount might confuse people.”
• “Considering the number of people will be always more than the number of farms , the app should be more focused on people.”
• “Should be able to add more than one location.”
• “Where am I providing the farm’s information?”
• “Should be able to post a job when and if required.”
• “What happens is the booked worker does not show up?”
• “How are you calling someone skilled or a beginner?”