Amber Waves Farm
Amber Waves Farm is a working farm, market, and restaurant in Amagansett, New York. This was a short-term project conducted as part of the Bitesize UX course “UX Design for Business Goals” led by a senior UX designer. For this redesign project, I had to create a low-fidelity prototype of the Amber Waves Farm web app to make it more user-friendly for chefs placing produce orders.
My role:
UX Design
UX Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
Tools:
Figma
FigJam
Zoom
Timeline:
7 hours
Discovery 🔍
The Problem
Amber Waves Farm grow vegetables and sells them to local restaurants in New York. They were looking for a way to improve their Wholesale Ordering site to create a simple, streamlined process for users and Amber Waves Farm Employees.
First, the senior designer had a stakeholder interview to answer the following question:
How will improving the wholesale ordering process contribute to business goals for Amber Waves?
Learning from Stakeholders
We wanted to learn more about the current process, challenges, and business goals from Amber Waves Employees, so we could better understand how to create an effective solution.
We conducted a stakeholder interview with the Farm & Wholesale Manager to learn more about business goals, current challenges, and constraints. Here are the insights I gained during the stakeholder interview:
Success Looks Like
What is their desired outcome?
All orders are submitted from a single place (e.g. the website).
Current Solutions and Challenges
What's wrong with how it works now?
Condensing all the orders into one list is difficult. Currently, the manager looks at multiple texts, emails, and Excel sheets and then puts all the orders into a single chart. Customers who text often ask which produce is available even though that information is on the website.
Business Goals
How will this outcome improve their business?
Saving Amber Waves Farm employees time, and provide customers with the information immediately.
Constraints / Requirements
What are some things we'll have to "work around"? or consider?
Ambers Waves Farm employees don’t want any big changes because they already understand the backend, and the customers know how to use the frontend, but it should be more user-friendly.
Understanding the User
Next, we utilized secondary research and user interviews to further understand how customers place orders, and their specific goals when doing so.
One of the biggest challenges for Amber Waves is that orders and requests are sent through texts, emails, and other alternate channels. This makes processing orders difficult and scattered.
We reviewed some text and email correspondence from our client to understand some of the requests being made by chefs and customers.
Additionally, we conducted an interview with an Amber Waves Customer to dive deeper into some of the needs and preferences chefs have when placing an order.
We asked about some background, how they place orders, and some of the important aspects of ordering efficiently and accurately.
Key Insights from User Interview:
Usually does two big hauls each week
Also orders on a daily basis and receives the produce the following morning. This schedule works well for fresh food that they don’t want to put in the refrigerator. They mainly cook with produce that would otherwise go to waste, but customers get to enjoy it when it is in its peak condition.
As the head of the kitchen, the client doesn’t do a lot of cooking. They mostly take inventory of the kitchen, get a list of what is needed by other chefs, and then at the end of the night texts the Farm & Wholesale Manager their order.
The efficiency and speed of getting an order could be better. The user would like to be able to do place orders from their phone.
They would like to order specific food based on features (e.g. color, size, ripeness, etc.)
Persona
From this research, we were able to define a user persona, highlighting key needs and goals in the wholesale ordering process.
Defining Goals
User Goals
As a user, I want to quickly and accurately order produce that meets the needs of my kitchen.
Business Goals
As a business owner, I want to receive all order submissions from one source so that I do not have to aggregate them myself.
Potential Difficulties
The primary risk is that the user will still not use the website to submit orders and instead continue to text/email their orders directly to the Farm & Wholesale Manager.
Possible Solutions
Make it simple for the user to view all of the most recent available produce.
Include a way for the user to specify the type of produce that they need.
Ideation 💡
User Flow
I created a user flow that shows how Jumpin’ Jimmy would achieve the goal of ordering produce.
Design 💻
Wireframes
I created low-fidelity wireframes for the Amber Waves Farm wholesale ordering process.
Home
Submit Saved Order Pop-up
Saved Orders List
Produce Menu
Produce Item
Shopping Cart
Delivery 🎁
Make Repeat Orders Easier to Place
For customers like Jumpin’ Jack who know that they will often have to order the same items in bulk, having the ability to create and save the orders for future use makes a faster, simpler, and more efficient checkout process.
Say What You Need
Choose the specific characteristics that you are looking for so that you will know exactly what kind of produce you will receive and therefore can better plan the meals that you will prepare for the week.
Reflection 🤔
Here is the top lesson that I learned throughout the process:
Ask the Stakeholders “Why” Often
While watching the lead designer interview the Farm & Wholesale Manager, I noticed that he continued to ask questions such as “Why do you think that customers continue to text/email you their orders rather than use the website?” or “Why do you think that a redesign will make customers more likely to use the website?” These questions helped the junior designers gain insights into the specific pain points of the stakeholders and their vision for Amber Waves Farm rather than jumping into design solutions that may not address the challenges/constraints.
Next Steps 📝
Make high-fidelity wireframes and a high-fidelity prototype based on the paper wireframes.
Have another meeting with the stakeholders to discuss the redesign and receive any feedback from Amber Waves Farm.
Test the high-fidelity prototype with the users.