Client: The Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Mission Area of USDA
Website: Farmers.gov
My Role: Senior UX Strategist
Background
Farmers.gov is USDA’s flagship website for all farmer-focused information. It was created in 2018 and was a top priority of the then Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and was also included on the President’s Management Agenda.
When my team started designing and building the website, it was only a homepage. We were tasked with building the site from scratch.
The problem
Farmers are an extremely diverse group. The word “farmer” doesn’t even begin to capture the expansive landscape of American agricultural producers.
In addition to farmers, there are ranchers and private landowners, and several distinctions within each of these groups. They can range from organic to non-organic, urban to rural, and there is a wide variety of ethnicities, ages, and levels of education.
So how do we make design decisions for such a large audience?
Limitations
We couldn’t speak with farmers. The federal government must follow strict procedures in order to collect information from the public. This process involves a lot of paperwork and lengthy approval times, averaging between 6-9 months.
We had an aggressive timeline. With both the Secretary of Agriculture and President of the United States heavily invested in the success of the site, it was important to build the site as quickly as possible.
The solution
Since the farming audience is so large and already pretty well researched, we decided to create something new: Farmer profiles.
Instead of specific personas based on feedback from farmers, we decided to aggregate and analyze existing data to create user groups. They did not represent any specific individual, but rather groups of people that share the same characteristics.
I performed a meta-analysis of 14 data sources, looking for themes and patterns about their distinct needs, perceptions, actions, and frustrations. We had access to existing farmer personas and reports created by other agencies, data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, and also qualitative and quantitative data from other USDA properties.
Credit: GSA Centers of Excellence
Outcomes
Based on what we learned, we placed farmers into 3 distinct groups based on their age, goals, frustrations, and information-seeking behavior.
- Farmers who are very traditional and are unlikely to explore new ways of doing business with USDA, and therefore unlikely to use the website at all. They prefer to do business in person or on the phone.
- Farmers who weigh their options before making a decision. In some instances they may choose to use the website, other times they may opt to do business in person.
- Farmers who are very modern and will always choose the website instead of doing business in person or on the phone.
We used these profiles to prioritize design decisions on new content and features. While this wasn’t our preferred solution, we were able to intimately learn about farmers and develop an informed strategy for how to start building the website.