From siloed programs to unified system
In 2019, paying farmers for soil carbon capture felt like the future. But by 2022, Indigo Ag’s app had become a maze. Different programs, conflicting rules, and siloed teams led to a clunky, frustrating user experience.
I was part of an ambitious effort to bring these fragmented tools together into a single, intuitive platform.
Scope
Lead UX Design
The decision paradox
When it first launched, Indigo’s Carbon program was a leader in paying farmers for field data, even though it required a five-year commitment. As sustainability markets evolved, Indigo and other companies launched Scope 3 programs. Scope 3 offered higher payouts with just a one-year commitment. Suddenly farmers had more choices of programs and companies to work with.
But there was a catch: farmers could only enroll each field in one program at a time, and switching wasn’t easy. They had to be sure they were making the right long-term decision.
Understandably, farmers hesitated to sign up:
What if a better opportunity comes along? I don’t want to be locked in to one program.
The business solution
Indigo introduced Field Flex, allowing fields to switch programs every year—giving farmers the flexibility to earn more without getting stuck in long-term commitments.
But Indigo’s siloed products weren’t built for this level of flexibility.
Over the years, different program teams had built different tools with different rules, creating a tangled web of systems that didn’t talk to each other. Patchwork fixes helped, but the process remained frustratingly complex. Sales reps struggled, often relying on Indigo admins to manually navigate the clunky system.
Field Flex had the potential to be a win-win for farmers and Indigo, but first we had to build a system that made it easy.
The challenge
Our goal for this project was to create a system that not only made it easy for farmers to switch between programs, but also set the stage for future growth and innovation. While Field Flex solved the immediate challenge, we were focused on building an intuitive platform for both farmers and our business partners—one that adapts effortlessly to new programs as the sustainability market continues to evolve.
Our high level goals were to:
- ensure partners can easily navigate the system to support farmers every step of the way.
- bring all our systems together in one flexible platform.
- future-proof our product to grow and change as new programs emerge.
Process
Discovery
Map the system
Before jumping into the design, we needed to understand the system.
We learned from previous experience that we needed to build a web of dynamic content, not a hierarchy.
We identified and diagramed our “objects” so that we could have a shared understanding of:
- the real-world objects in a user’s mental model
- how objects relate to each other
- what actions can be taken on an object
Design the architecture
Using the object model as our base, we developed a site map with 2 layers for our distinct user types.
Farmer
All information related to one operation
Partner
Aggregated views of all clients, plus the ability to modify data from the top level or the single-operation view
Establishing UI templates
We knew that our UI needed to be modular and adaptable to keep pace with the evolving industry. That led us to designing customizable templates that were general enough to apply to a variety of circumstances, but specific enough to maintain an intuitive user experience.
We boiled it down to 3 primary templates:
Hubs
Orient the user and provide a high level view, ie: all programs
Dashboards
Prioritize tasks within a defined context, ie: one program
Tasks
Full-page overlays that allow users to view and edit objects from any page
Pressure test the work
Time to prove out our concept. We made a list of the partner’s primary tasks and checked the individual steps against the templates.
Scenario 1
As a partner, I want to…
add a new client
Dashboard
1. Go to all operations, click “add operation”
Task
2. Enter info, save and close
Dashboard
3. Client added
Scenario 2
As a partner, I want to…
check the progress of a program to see which clients need help
Hub
Dashboard
2. View one program, filter by status
Dashboard / Quick view
3. Get a quick overview of a client’s progress
Scenario 3
As a partner, I want to…
add fields from a shapefile
Dashboard / Quick view
Task
2. Select “upload shapefile”
Task
3. Upload file
Task
4. Select fields and add
Beyond Field Flex: creating a system that grows with the industry
This project reinforced the importance of designing for both immediate needs and long-term adaptability. By focusing on flexibility, we created a system that not only met the demands of Field Flex but could also support future sustainability programs as they emerged. While I wasn’t at Indigo to see the final implementation, the work we did laid a strong foundation.
By collaborating across teams and establishing clear frameworks, we ensured that the product could evolve with the changing needs of farmers, partners, and the industry as a whole.