Farm PEP is a knowledge exchange platform connecting those in agriculture including producers, agritech and government bodies to enable faster growth and innovation within the sector. The organisation has multiple senior stakeholders and operates under an open model with regular feedback from its open community. The site was originally conceived on a small but agile budget. As such, many parts of the standard process were overlooked. This lead to a messy, confusing site with low take-up and minimal recurring sessions.
2024
FarmPEP
Key pain points
• Poor navigation hierarchy and labeling. All options for adding content were shown to logged out users, leading to negative alert messages and login redirects
• The site’s content structure was extremely confusing to anyone other than the site development team. Back-end database terminology and post types were being convoluted with front-end UI, making it extremely confusing for all users. Signups were low as a result, often making it as far as the how-to guide before leaving the site altogether.
•Boundaries between information silos blurred, mostly through confusing terminology. No clear signposting often left users stranded in certain corners of the site. Analytics showed little crossflow traffic moving users through preferred user journeys
• Little to no consideration for mobile experiences
• Poor interaction signposting with vague or missleading microscopy
• Dated UI and poor use of brand.
Solutions
- • New navigation hierarchy with clear labelling, introducing colour design system and iconography. Optimised CTAs for logged-out users, reducing redirects to the login page
- • Reduced ambiguous drupal-native language structures in favour of a more human approach. Simplified the sign-up process and offered help at each stage in the form of tooltips and direct linking to specific sections of the guide. Subsequent increases in new users and active sessions was noted
- • Defined user journeys per user type, tailoring their suggestions and reducing irrelevant content. Connected information silos with new CTA cards, encouraging users to try out additional connected features site-wide.
• User feedback showed increased awareness of related content and features
- • Implemented mobile-optimised content structure, introducing language breakpoints and a more intuitive touch experience
- • Updated microcopy to be more descriptive of the action to be taken, enabling faster filtering of data
• Improved unintuitive UI adhering to basic brand guides, increasing the scope of the guidelines themselves to include digital applications, language and copy patterns.
