Creating a Website for Ukrainian Agricultural Startup
Kyrylo Liakhovets
Summary
I helped a Ukrainian agricultural startup develop a dynamic and informative website for its agrodrone rental service.
The challenge
The website should feature a user-friendly interface, interactive maps displaying drone locations, detailed drone specifications, and a seamless booking system. Together with the blog section where the project can share useful things, life hacks, and experiences. Its purpose is to streamline the rental process, promote sustainable farming practices, and enhance agricultural productivity.
UX Research
Talking with Farmers in Ukraine
I started my research by talking to farmers. My goal was to get as much information as possible for the project, as well as photo and video content for the website. Also, my goal was to collect all the content and try to penetrate the minds of our target audience. I wanted to find out what worries them, and what difficulties and dangers they encounter in their everyday work.
The target audience was quite wide: farmers, agricultural researchers, crop consultants, agronomists, agricultural service providers, and agricultural teachers.
There was a request from the CEO to develop develop a website that would not only offer drone rental services, but also serve as an educational platform where the startup would share its insights, lifehacks, and training videos. Everything had to be focused on our target audience.
I started with strategy and brand building, aimed at both simplifying communication with users and making the service more technologically advanced.
Problem Statement
Strategy
Information Architecture
When we initially worked on the home page, we decided what we would display on it, namely to focus on the educational part of the site. The blog planned to create a series of articles that would share the Benefits of using agro-drones for rental, Case studies of successful agro-drone usage, Tips for maximizing the efficiency of rented agro-drones, and Common misconceptions about renting agro-drones.
Wireframed Experience
At the wideframes stage, I conveyed the structure of the future site and the placement of future content. Until this time, having no idea about the visual part of the site, it was easier for the product owner to perceive the flow of information and the architecture of the site.
The User Flow
Solution. Design
Special Focus on Mobile
I realized that most of our target audience is in the fields, and they have less opportunity to use computers than mobile devices. It was important to us to create a site that looked good on all devices, maintaining a user-focused design and following a clear structure to make everything easy to understand.
Highlighting the Startup's Features and Impact
In the agro-industrial sector of Ukraine, there are already many organizations and companies that offer excellent solutions for farming. However, very few companies make such an impact and impression as SkySpray Drone. We deliberately focused a large number of real images and videos from the fields to convey this impact to the user. That’s what we wanted to convey so that the potential client would have the feeling not of “just another agricultural drone,” but of a real mission and technological work.
We considered it important to create the site during the war in Ukraine. Thus, we wanted to show the importance of preserving the country’s economy and its restoration after the end of hostilities.
Clarifying the Importance of Trichogramma
We decided to add separate information pages that convey the usefulness of trigrams.
Modern agriculture has become a platform for constant search for innovations and advanced technologies that help farmers increase productivity and production efficiency. One of these innovative methods is the use of Trichogramma, a biological pest control agent. We told you what Trichogramma is, what benefits it provides, and why its use is important for modern agriculture in Ukraine.
Results
Seasonal Output
After farmers ordered field processing services, we received output data. The data was compared for the same period in the 2022 season.
Key Takeaways
By combating the inefficiencies of traditional farming methods, we have significantly reduced the loss of agricultural resources.
1. Increasing Accessibility
The great impact was the development and implementation of a website structure and navigation based on user research, their needs, and pain points. This significantly increased the level of technological knowledge of farmers.
2. Brand recognition
During the work on the project, a brand identity was developed. This accelerated the scaling of the project and also increased the recognition of the Startup as a new market player in the agricultural business of Ukraine.
3. Increase in orders
One of the main features of the site was to provide the ability to quickly call to order a service. 10% of increasing the conversion rates led to an increase in the quantity of quality orders.
