A suite of field applications designed to capture authentic farmer and farm data for carbon projects.
Category:
Founding UXUI Designer
Author:
Regen Ag, Agroforestry (ARR), Biochar Monitoring
Read:
Field Surveyors (Paid-per-acre incentive model)
Location:
Low connectivity, low literacy, strict verification
Date:
May 21, 2024
Understanding emotional response through space, hierarchy, and visual restraint:
The initial website was built by an agency and couldn't keep pace with Varaha's rapid growth. As the company approached Series A, we needed to expand the site's architecture to showcase new project impact. Later, the challenge shifted to defining a "Future Brand" that could accommodate new business lines beyond just agriculture.
Agroforestry App
Collecting trustworthy farmer & farm data for carbon projects in low-literacy regions.
Designed the core data-collection flows so field agents could reliably capture authentic farmer & farm data, then worked with an design agency to scale v2+ while keeping UX aligned with on-ground reality and carbon project needs.
Role:
Product Designer
Team:
PM, Project Team, Design Agency
Timeline:
9-Day Sprint (V1) → Scaled Architecture (V2)
The 9-Day Sprint (New Plantations)
The Constraint: We faced a strict deadline to demo a tool that could verify where new saplings were being planted. There was no PRD, just a discussion with the PM and a hard 9-day window to deliver. The Execution: Collaborating closely with the PM to define the absolute essentials, I designed the "New Plantation" verification flow. The resulting UI was intuitive that surveyors were able to use it immediately in the field without formal training.
The Scale (Existing Plantations)
The Complexity: Business needs shifted to verify Existing Plantations. This was a much harder data set involving older trees, complex land boundaries, and strict remote sensing requirements. The Partnership: To handle this complexity and volume, we again partnered with a design agency. The Workflow: We worked as a cohesive unit. I collaborated with Remote Sensing & Ops leads to define the data verification problems, while the agency deisgn team worked alongside us to produce more flows and high-fidelity UI. This allowed us to build a scalable architecture where new data requirements could be injected without breaking the user's mental model.
Biochar App
Collecting trustworthy farmer & farm data for carbon projects in low-literacy regions.
Designed the core data-collection flows so field agents could reliably capture authentic farmer & farm data, then worked with an design agency to scale v2+ while keeping UX aligned with on-ground reality and carbon project needs.
Role:
End-to-End Product Designer
Team:
Engineering Lead (No PM initially)
Timeline:
3 months for v1, ongoing iterations
The Dual Problem Space (Artisanal & Industrial Biochar Production)
The Problem: The Biochar project faced two opposing problems. On the Artisanal side, surveyors using ODK were faking data—reusing photos and logging ghost sites. On the Industrial side, we needed a parallel app for future plants, but those factories were still just concepts with no machines or physical workflows to observe. The Fix: With no PM on board, I worked directly with the Engineering Lead to extract requirements and structure the ecosystem into three clear phases: Biomass Procurement, Production, and End-Use Application. For the Artisanal flow, I designed anti-fraud UX that blocked photo-reuse and location spoofing so every bag of biochar was backed by real, verifiable proof. To unlock the Industrial side, I used GenAI tools to rapidly prototype hypothetical machine workflows, letting us visualize the “Production” phase long before the physical plants existed.
Impact
Eliminated Data Fraud: The new system closed the loopholes in ODK by enforcing strict evidence capture, securing the integrity of the carbon credits. Future-Proofed Architecture: I delivered a unified system where Procurement and End-Use remain consistent across both models, while the Production module flexes between manual (Artisanal) and machine-driven (Industrial) inputs—making the product ready for today’s field realities and tomorrow’s industrial plants.
