Overview
Trial Edge is a digital platform designed for soil and product trials in the agritech industry. It helps farmers, field managers, and agribusinesses test how different products perform in the same soil sections — fertilizers, herbicides, or new products entering the market.
The client was Agriedge, who hired us to create the product from scratch. The goal was to design a solution that would reduce the time, cost, and complexity of running trials, while providing reliable, visual, and actionable insights that build trust with growers and speed up product adoption.
Role & Tools
Role & Tools
- Senior Product Designer
- Conducted research with agronomists and stakeholders
- Defined user flows, wireframes, and prototypes
- Led iterations on field trial manager use cases
- Designed hi-fi prototypes and prepared developer handoff
Tools
- Figma & FigJam (design & flows)
- Google Meet & Slack (collaboration)
- ChatGPT (research support, ideation)
Team
Core problem
Field trials are slow, expensive, and complex. Results are often scattered, hard to trust, and difficult to compare. This creates uncertainty for farmers and slows down product adoption for agribusinesses.
Trial Edge needed to simplify trial management by providing faster and more reliable data collection, clear visual comparisons across fields and locations, and trusted insights that reduce decision-making risk.
Constraints
- Time: only one month to execute the full design process.
- Scope: a completely new product, requiring deep understanding of scientific vocabulary and trial methodologies.
- Resources: a small cross-functional team, meeting daily to align progress.
Solution
We proposed a web-based platform (desktop + tablet) with a complementary mobile app, designed specifically for field trial managers and agribusiness stakeholders.
- Data visualization: side-by-side comparisons of products.
- Mobile-friendly workflows for managers in the field.
- Downloadable reports and real-time alerts to support faster, confident decisions.
- Standardized flows, reducing errors and increasing trust.
Gallery
12 screens
Process
- 01
Understand the goal
I collaborated with agronomists and stakeholders to answer why this tool matters, what problem it solves, how it meets customer needs, and whether it creates business opportunities. The answer: Trial Edge makes trials faster, cheaper, and more reliable, giving farmers and companies clear data to make decisions while opening new market opportunities for agribusiness.
- 02
Define the audience
We identified three personas: Farmer, Dealer, and Field Trial Manager — the primary user. Field trial managers supervise trials, record data, and ensure results are usable. They're mobile, time-pressured, and need simple, visual tools to speed up decision-making.
- 03
Understand customer context
Where: in the field, moving between test plots. Event: running or analysing trials where results are unclear. Time: limited, needing real-time feedback. Platform: mostly mobile and tablet, sometimes desktop. Emotions: frustrated by delays, hopeful for clarity. From this we wrote user stories — as a field manager I want to see clear trial results in real time so I can make quick decisions; as an agribusiness manager I want to compare trials across locations so I can scale products with confidence.
- 04
Research & benchmarking
We studied existing internal tools and external benchmarks to understand current pain points, missing features in existing flows, and opportunities for better UX patterns.
- 05
Wireframes & flows
We designed lo-fi wireframes of the main flows, focusing on trial creation and results visualization. Iterations covered how to define and draw a field trial section, how to record and manage results, and how to visualize comparisons.
- 06
Hi-fi prototypes
We evolved into hi-fi designs using the Untitled UI library to speed up production, with colours adapted to Agriedge's brand guidelines. We built interactive prototypes, validated flows with users, and prepared wireflows — screens plus backend notes — for developer clarity.
- 07
Testing & KPIs
Testing and KPI tracking are planned once development is complete. Metrics will evaluate time saved creating and managing trials, adoption rate among field managers, and accuracy and trust in trial results.
Results
0
Month, end to end
0
Personas defined
0
Platforms designed
- A validated product design ready for development.
- Clear flows for trial creation and comparison, tested with real users.
- Strong alignment with business goals: faster product validation and increased trust.
- Developer-ready wireflows and prototypes, reducing ambiguity in implementation.
Conclusion
Trial Edge demonstrates how design thinking can simplify scientific processes in agriculture.
The platform reduces trial complexity, saving time and money while increasing trust.
With field trials being a cornerstone of agtech, Trial Edge positions Agriedge as an innovator in digital agriculture.
Links