Big data yields big increases in crop production.
FarmLink
Smart data for smarter farming
Precision farming
FarmLink is transforming the agriculture market. With the world’s largest source of reliable data on farm production, FarmLink brings precision farming to modern growers. The promise is to maximize land use, harvest yields, and selling price, for sustainable profitability.
The assets underpinning FarmLink systems are substantial. FarmLink controls a critical mass of proprietary data, derived from 800 million yield observations collected from the country’s largest managed fleet of instrumented combines, and overlaid with decades of satellite imagery. The aggregate data forms the basis of the company’s proprietary benchmark of yield potential for each field.
Making sense for farmers
We made this trove of data accessible and actionable to farmers. A practical and insightful user experience provides an approachable introduction into data analytics and precision farming. The resulting interface translates FarmLink’s formidable software into effective decision support for farmers making critical choices about what and when to plant, when to harvest, and when to sell.
Delivering on key experience design principles
The interface is ultra-intuitive and a pleasure to use, delivering on key experience design principles:
Simple onboarding. Introductory coach marks explain features of the interface and orient the new user. Easily dismissed with a tap anywhere on the page, coach marks provide unobtrusive guidance. Information icons open fly-out dialog boxes to offer contextual explanation, education, messaging, and links.
Actionable information. Contextual alerts highlight actionable data, such as the zones where farmers have the greatest opportunity for profitable improvement.
Workflow collaboration. Utility tools enable sharing between farmers and their advisors, fostering collaboration on the critical choices of planting for highest yield and selling for greatest profit.
Modern visual design system. The fresh look breaks down barriers of reticence with a friendly, inviting design. The modern aesthetic is attractive in an industry not used to sophisticated software systems, and hints at the powerful technology inside.
Visual map-based interface. Land is at the root of how farmers think. A visual land map experience is direct, tangible, and allows the qualities of the data to be self-evident.
The resulting product gives farmers access to powerful tools that expose opportunities, validate decision making, show impact on yield, and position FarmLink as the leader and standard in benchmarking.
Predictive modeling informs smart crop strategy
The power of the FarmLink product is to decipher possibilities in plots of land that haven’t been realized. So we not only created something beautiful, but also made some very sophisticated data modeling accessible in a user interface that anyone can use.
Farmers are often selling their crops before they even plant them. Predictive modeling tools allow farmers to establish trending, test likelihoods of different scenarios occurring, and predict the outcomes of their choices. With a forward-looking view of yield potential, local market value, weather effects on crop conditions, and the impact on profitability, farmers can make informed decisions on when to plant, when to harvest, and at what price to sell. We’re connecting the economic calculus to the calculus of growing.
The vibrant voice of precision farming
For a fresh, modern aesthetic that fits in the farm environment, we created a visual design system that’s vibrant, graphic, and earthy
- High-contrast colors support readability even in sunlit fields
- Page hierarchy conveys through consistent icons, page titles, content containers, and points of focus
- Reverse color blocks and typography treatment give prominence to important data
- Contextual help and editable fields encourage interaction throughout the experience
As adoption of data technology increases, farmers not only want high-quality data they can trust, they also want products that are easy to use.
Chief Data Scientist, FarmLink
