sproot: Empowering agricultural field officers in Kenya
Year
2025
My role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
2 months
Team
Me, project manager, product owner, developers
The challenge
sproot’s existing web app served its agricultural support mission, but field officers needed a mobile solution to work more efficiently in rural farming environments. The challenge was to create a mobile experience that could handle complex workflows while being accessible to users with lower digital literacy.
Why this matters?
Agriculture is the backbone of Kenya’s economy, supporting millions of people. Field officers play a crucial role in improving farming outcomes, but they need the right tool that could work in the field, offline, and with users who have varying levels of technology experience.
Research and ideation
During the initial kickoff meeting, the sproot team provided quite a lot of user research already done, detailed user personas, journey map documentation, and market research insights, thus, 50% of the foundation UX work was already completed. This allowed me to focus more on designing solutions rather than problem discovery, significantly accelerating the design timeline.
During this kickoff meeting and a collaborative session with HackSoft’s project team leader and Sproot’s management, we focused on some key project parameters:
- The primary user’s lower digital literacy, means an interface that should be extremely intuitive with minimal cognitive load and clear visual hierarchy, quick and efficient task completion in various conditions, working with farmers with various technical backgrounds, operating in areas with limited connectivity.
- Maintain a brand consistency with the existing web app while optimizing for mobile-first workflows.
Research and ideation
We designed and developed a low-fidelity prototype to conduct a usability test with around 10 participants with various digital literacy levels, including both Sproot employees and external participants for broad applicability.
The results
- 95% task completion rate across all core workflows
- Minimal confusion with navigation and feature location
- Only minor UI adjustments needed – primarily repositioning certain elements for better thumb reach
Key validation
“The interface feels familiar but works much better for field work”
— Field Officer Participant
The testing confirmed that a simplified approach and workflow-based architecture will successfully address the digital literacy challenge while maintaining the full functionality of the app.
Custom made design system
Applying the custom design system
Create a new farmer profile
Create a new farm
Create a farm field visit report
Capture field boundaries
All discussions are kept strictly confidential. Perfect for agencies, startups, and companies in regulated industries who understand the importance of discretion.