A first-of-its-kind super-app built to empower Africa’s agricultural community—farmers, agro-dealers, agronomists, NGOs, students, and internal staff—all under one unified platform. From learning how to farm better to buying essential tools, managing inventory, or consulting an expert, the app acts as a digital ecosystem designed to modernize agriculture across the continent.
Role:
Senior Designer, Design Consultant
Industry:
AgroTech
Duration:
22 weeks
People Involved:
4 Designers
Problem Statement
Although agriculture is the dominant trade in many African nations, the supporting infrastructure is still largely analog. Farmers often rely on generational knowledge instead of scientific insights. Agro-dealers keep handwritten ledgers. Students pursuing agriculture struggle to find structured learning or internships. Agronomists are few and far between. NGOs lack tools to coordinate outreach. And internet access is patchy, especially in rural zones. Most existing solutions solve only fragments of these problems. We wanted to solve them all, at once.
Goals & Objectives
Build a unified solution to support every stakeholder in the agriculture lifecycle.
Provide expert guidance and planning tools to farmers to improve crop outcomes.
Digitize agro-dealer operations and make inventory accessible to rural buyers.
Structure agricultural education with gamified modules and real-world internships.
Help NGOs manage events and outreach efficiently.
Design an experience usable on old phones, poor connections, and low literacy.
Research
With our design team based outside Africa, we relied on close collaboration with our African clients, their networks, and field partners to validate insights. We conducted assumption-based hypothesis testing and had our stakeholders validate these with actual users. We also built detailed personas and journey maps for farmers, agro-doctors, dealers, students, NGOs, and internal staff to capture diverse use cases. Our research surfaced challenges like offline bookkeeping, low device quality, poor internet penetration, and lack of structured educational resources.
Approach
Infrastructure-Aware UX: Designed a system that works offline, syncs on reconnect, and remains performant on outdated mobile devices.
Role-Based Experiences: Created tailored onboarding and feature sets for six user types, each with different goals and literacy levels.
Progressive Disclosure: Simplified flows so users would never be overwhelmed. Show what’s needed, when it’s needed.
Modular Delivery: Scoped features by role and priority, launching core farmer tools first, then layering in other modules.
Solution
Helping Farmers Move from Gut Instinct to Guided Decisions
AgroDoctor: Real-Time Expert Support:
Farmers often rely on intuition and generational knowledge. With AgroDoctor, they now have access to agronomists at their fingertips. Farmers can upload images, describe symptoms, and get expert guidance on diseases, pests, nutrition, and irrigation. AgroDoctors can link responses to specific marketplace products, simplifying next steps. Past chats are saved so that farmers can revisit guidance anytime—even offline.
Season Planning + Spray Programs
Planning is critical, especially with unpredictable weather and tight finances. We built a 15-stage growth plan system that helps farmers select their crop, define the expected yield, input costs, and profits. The Spray Program is tightly integrated, so farmers know exactly what to apply and when—reducing dependency on memory and reducing resource wastage. The planner also compares expected vs. actual performance to improve accuracy over time.
Crop Manuals & Soil Testing
We created crop-specific manuals with text-light, image-rich content that can be downloaded for offline viewing. These manuals cover everything from seed selection to post-harvest. For farmers with access to our soil-testing devices, they can request a test directly in the app. AgroDoctors view these requests, accept them, visit the farm, and use a Bluetooth-enabled sensor to scan soil. Based on the results, the system recommends fertilizers, which can be ordered directly from the ETG Mart.
Giving Agro-Dealers a Digital Storefront
ETG Mart: E-Commerce for Rural Inputs
Agro-Dealers were used to managing everything on paper. We digitized their storefront with features for inventory, pricing, category mapping, and multi-unit management. They can view top-selling products, manage local promotions, and update stock in real time. Farmers can now find nearby dealers, compare prices, and place orders without travel.
Order Management & QR Tracking
Every order in the system has a full lifecycle—placed, confirmed, packed, in-transit, picked up, or delivered. Agro-dealers can scan QR codes to confirm pick-up, delivery, or successful sales at pop-ups and events. We introduced referral QR codes too, so dealers earn loyalty points and bonuses when new farmers join through them. This incentivizes growth while improving dealer accountability.
Educating the Next Generation of Agronomists
Learning Management System (LMS)
Students get access to curated agricultural courses created by agronomists and senior farmers. Each course includes chapters, videos, quizzes, and a final assessment. They earn certificates, which can be shared in forums and attached to internship applications. We introduced gamified features like spin-the-wheel rewards, pop quizzes, and leaderboard challenges to drive retention.
Internship Management
Internships are built like real-world projects. Students select a program—like crop manual building, market research, or product testing—then submit a proposal, track milestones, and upload reports. Staff review submissions, leave feedback, and approve certification. This structure creates a strong loop between learning and doing, giving students hands-on experience.
Empowering Staff to Drive Organizational Success
Event Reports & Testimonial Collection
Staff can create, manage, and document field events such as farmer training sessions, product demos, or awareness drives. The app allows them to log event details (location, date, objective), capture testimonials from attendees, and upload photos. QR codes are used to mark attendance and validate participation. Event reports are auto-generated with templates, ensuring consistency and ease of review.
Product Trials
Field teams can manage trials for new seeds, fertilizers, or tools. They can log trial objectives, assign products, document test environments, and track results over time. The app supports capturing pre-trial conditions, real-time observations, and end-of-trial outcomes. All of this can be compiled into reports that help with internal R&D or marketing validations.
Agronomy & Marketing Reports
Staff can generate structured reports on agronomy visits, farmer feedback, crop issues, and product inquiries. These reports feed into internal dashboards and decision-making cycles. Templates help standardize submissions, and role-based access ensures that sensitive insights remain controlled. These features were critical in scaling organizational operations without overburdening teams.
Infrastructure-First Design
Designed for Constraints
Offline-first access for all critical modules
Lightweight design works on 8–10 year-old Android devices
Multi-language support (English, French, Swahili, Portuguese)
Large iconography and high contrast UI for outdoor use
Familiar but Purposeful Interactions
Conversational UI for AgroDoctor mirrors chat apps farmers already use
Marketplace flows mirror mobile shopping patterns
Points and rewards help drive habit formation and repeat usage
Results & Future Scope
Initial Results
Positive adoption feedback from clients, leading to a new South Africa-focused eCommerce project.
Clients initiated CSR campaigns to distribute devices and provide tech education for rural farmers.
Feedback & Iterations
Internal staff requested collaborative features in admin reporting tools—currently being explored.
Farmers and agronomists requested a merged season planner and spray program—plans underway.
NGOs want to take on more functionality—discussions in progress.
What’s Next
Separate eCommerce app for South Africa, with potential to integrate into the current platform.
Enhancing QR functionality for more use cases.
Client-led adoption campaigns continue across remote areas, but full-scale adoption remains gradual due to geographic spread.
Key Learnings & Growth
Personal Learnings
Building a product at this scale all at once came with trade-offs. We should have advocated for a more incremental release.
Learned deeply about Africa’s tech constraints, financial ecosystems, and market behaviors.
Product & Design Insights
Even users with little tech experience adapt quickly when motivated—it’s a natural curve.
Constraints pushed us to design smarter, faster, and more empathetically.
Improved at stakeholder management, product storytelling, and designing admin systems end-to-end.
Broader Impact
If widely adopted, this app can make agriculture scalable, data-driven, and more accessible to future generations.
It also proves that even in highly constrained markets, meaningful digital transformation is possible.
A similar project in future? I'd bring my past learnings, but revalidate everything for the new audience, new market, new time.
Final Thoughts
Biggest Success: Seeing the project move into Phase 2 and expanding to new markets.
What I’d Change: UI consistency, tighter visual system, and building the crop analysis tool natively instead of integrating a third-party solution.
Career Impact: Built my confidence in designing scalable systems across multiple user roles, managing complexity, and thinking long-term about product ecosystems.
