Farm Carbon Calculator

Farm Carbon Calculator is the UK’s largest free tool for aggregating farm data, enabling farmers and distributors and supermarkets to accurately track carbon footprints, ‘farm to fork’. The diagnostic tool is capable of calculating and benchmarking emissions from a multitude of sources including fuel, livestock and crops. For version 2.0, I needed to address the significant UX and accessibility issues including responsive optimisation, user onboarding, data input and reporting. This was alongside applying the new brand and UI I had developed in parallel.

The work on version 2.0 took place over the course of 2 years on an agile basis. Each phase of work included a kickoff workshop, sprint specification, wireframing, prototyping, UI, development and deployment.

Date:

2021-24

Client:

Farm Carbon Calculator

Tags:
Key pain points
  • The language throughout tool was largely ‘developer speak’ and was often unclear and confusing for all user types. This was due to minimal UI style guidance applied to a largely developer-led framework

  • Form submissions and data sync took between 5-10 seconds with no activity indicators. This left users not knowing if submission or sync were successful, and multiple submissions being made.

  • Data inputs are displayed in bulk, often overloading the users with too much information at once, also slowing page speed. Lengthy explanations of data needed to be included in-line before every site 

  • Data in reports using inadequate charting and poor labelling. Responsive data display suffered as a result of poor charting integration.

Solutions
  • •  Introduced extra sessions in each design sprint focusing purely on language and functional definitions. Implemented clear and concise language that could be universally understood by farmers, distributors and government bodies. These changes marked an improvement in active sessions with larger distributors and a reduction in help tickets from farmer users.

  • Introduced waiting screens with % loading indicators making the user aware of background activity. While the user waited, tips and features were displayed below accompanied by custom illustrated iconography. The items shown were dependent on the type of user, ensuring user groups were only shown relevant information. This resulted in a large reduction in duplicate data submissions and manual database corrections.

  • • Lengthy data inputs were stripped back to step-by-step dynamic loading tabs. In-line instructions were moved to tooltips meaning users are only shown the information they request. Tooltips were also rewritten in the same concise, universal tone. Input time was reduced, despite no changes to the amount of data requested.

  • • New JavaScript charting solutions were bought in allowing greater versatility in graph display. This enabled us to input custom labels and additional dynamic keys, alongside allowing greater freedom for chart interaction on smaller mobile devices.
Brand & Application

In addition to UX and UI improvements, I also implemented a new brand and extended identity through a new design system including new illustration and iconography. This brand was also extended to the Calculator’s sister site, Farm Carbon Toolkit.


FCT is a farmer-led resource site offering producers a scientific-backed toolkit for reducing their carbon footprint. The site featured a comprehensive wiki-style resource centre housing a large amount of data that was constantly evolving. I created an extended library of illustration and iconography for use across FCT and FCC to improve the brand’s approachability for all invested partners.