CHALLENGE
Channel is one of Bayer’s many seed brands in the market. It is unique compared to others because of its specific brand positioning that is centered around a personal relationship and extra effort from the dealer. This personal relationship was cemented with the dealer coming out to their customer’s farm to scout throughout the year and take note of how products were performing across fields.
The mechanism in which dealers were logging these visits was all over the place. They were using their own apps, pen and paper, or an old app Bayer put together that there was widespread negative sentiment about.
Bayer challenged us to build a new iPad app that connected to the internal CRM so information tracked in these visits could be associated to the farmer customer. With the biggest goal being an iPad app so user-friendly it would make the dealers forget about previous iterations they were not fond of.
PROCESS
We began the process with a half day working session with the client. In this session we identified the key features, tasks, and connections this tool needed to have. Once we got alignment here we were able to move to the next phase.
Once the feature set was determined, I began building out wireframes in sprints with a UX partner at the time. We worked in tandem building out the pages into a clickable protoype.
We then tested this prototype with both internal stakeholders and members of our farmer audience to gauge sentiment on the tool itself as well as gather optimizations for usability improvements.
Once the UI was in a good spot, this is where I partnered with development to write the complete user story set for the tool, as well as write a functional requirements document for them.
Our development partner built out the iPad app and I was part of the QA team that tested its functionality and connectivity before it went live.
ADOPTION AND REACTION
Immediately after the tool’s launch, compliments from dealers came pouring in to our clients with quotes like “Wow! I love the design of it! Things are easy to find and to maneuver through,” and “I’m excited to get started in this new growing year scouting with this app”. Additionally, app usage goals for a 12 month were reached in only three months.
TOOLS USED
- Indigo.design
- WebEx for usability testing
DELIVERABLES
For this project I cannot include links to example work or screenshots as this tool was a propriety, internal tool, but this is what I completed for the project:
- Wireframes
- Clickable prototype
- Functional requirements document
- User stories
Amanda Meeks 