Jala Mobile App Redesign

Shrimp farming is not a job done alone, but rather a team effort. Normally, there are several roles in the shrimp farming process, such as owners who need to know the latest updates on water quality and financial conditions, technicians who manage the work and monitor water quality and the shrimp in order to achieve optimal growth, admins who record cultivation data and finance, and other roles that are critical to the success of shrimp farming. The Jala mobile app, previously only used for recording cultivation data. We need to update and add more functionality for each use cases, and also to bring business needs such as promotional sections, premium features, etc. At this point, we want to change the design of the mobile app so that it can meet these various use case and roles.

I led the project for nine months by doing field research, design processes, and doing a beta testing program before it was released publicly.

Timeline

March - November 2020

Role

Product Designer | Jala - fulltime
Project Lead, User Research, Experience & Interface Design, Prototyping, testing

Background

Jala Tech provides solutions to help farmers understand the farm condition better in real-time way for a preventive actions towards the risk of shrimp farming. With IoT and Software as a Sercive (SaaS) product, Jala help farmers to maximize the farming productivity & efficiency.

Visit Website Jala tech

Challenge

The aim of this project was to revamp the previous Jala mobile app to provide a better experience for the varieties of roles and user needs in shrimp farming management. Also adding the business need into the app.

Before that, I’ll tell how the Jala IoT devices and the app works

Baruno is a smart water quality meter with 4 sensor parameters which is important for shrimp farming. Baruno connected to the internet, so farmers could store the measurement result data to the Jala cloud. Where they can access and monitor the data and information of the water quality anytime and anywhere using a gadget. On the web browser or mobile app.

problems, Limitation on functionality, The features in the app are still not as complete as the web version, Need to add business requirements on the app

Challenge

How Might We ...

revamp a mobile app so the owner, technician or admin can using the app based on their jobs & needs also more complete features like the existing web-app?

Ideation

Initially, we wanted to seek insights from existing users. But because at that time we also had an agenda for field research, we did a design initiation first so we could test it on the users and see what they thought.

Research & Testing

We conduct research on farmer behaviour in the field. This research was conducted at two farm locations in Purworejo and Pemalang, Central Java by two Product Designers who were also involved in the research.

Field research duration

2 Weeks

Location

- Purworejo, Central Java
- Pemalang, Central Java

Research Method:

Behavioral Research

Observing the activity on daily task about shrimp farming.

User Interview

Asking about their jobs in farm and also the daily interaction using Jala app.

Focus Group Discussion

Discuss with several employee about how their workflow, benefit, and challenges.

Card Sorting

Use the Card Sorting method to figure out how the parameters are sorted based on the context of the cultivation process and prioritized to be recorded and monitored.

FYI, the shrimp farming process is quite complex and each farm has different methods. This process requires constant updates in water quality that are crucial during the shrimp farming process so that productivity is at optimal growth. Also, maintaining the feed to keep efficient.We conducted interviews to discover the organizational structure, the process of cultivation, how they coordinate, and how they plan to start the next cultivation cycle.

Design Iteration Process

Based on the research and usability test, I make an ideation to create design iteration and also creating new features.

Design result

The previous design

New design (highlight)

Project Learning

Communication

Communicating with users with low tech savvy is quite challenging and requires adaptation and experience to make it easier to cope when users do not understand some things related to technology and application usage.

Research preparation is important

Before starting this project, we studied several research methods from various sources and tried to implement them, but in fact, there were quite a few that we didn't understand well and only realized it when we finished research and evaluation. The more frequently we do research and experimentation we think it will be very helpful for future projects.

Don’t rush with visual, do design critique earlier

In terms of ideation, the design process that I did was very time-consuming and less effective. The importance of conducting a design critique for fellow designers is very important to be able to see other perspectives and to open up opportunities for understanding the right problems and solutions.