Martin Williams
Martin Williams is an advertising agency based in Minneapolis, MN. Clients included Raymond James, Syngenta, Cargill, Marvin Windows, Simmons Bedding Company, and P.F. Chang.
These projects below are with our client, Syngenta. Syngenta is a leader in US agriculture, providing innovative crop research and technology. Syngenta has been a long time partner with Martin Williams, since 1971, and is currently their agency of record.
The Project
Golden Harvest website
My Role: As a UX/UI Designer I worked on many digital projects for Syngenta US/Canada. One of the projects included developing their Golden Harvest website, a new brand of seed care they were launching. I worked closely with Syngenta’s team of business analysts, sales reps and stakeholders to develop the information architecture and wireframes for GoldenHarvest.com. I then, handed the architecture and wireframes to our team of project managers and developers for development.
Goals/Objectives
1. Clearly and effectively establish Golden Harvest name, brand, and position. Build awareness and credibility for Syngenta’s new brand.
2. Allow farmers to view the agronomics of Golden Harvest products by allowing them to view yield results and local crop information to help them select the best genetics.
Background
Our main audience is most concerned with finding/learning about the items below in context to their local area. For example a farmer in central Iowa only wants to learn about the best seed technology that is specific to central Iowa.
Main Users Goals:
Finding a Seed Advisor in order to purchase seed.
Viewing local yields produced by the different seed products.
Reading about Golden Harvest agronomic news
Bonus:
-Learning about the most recent Hybrids/Seed Technology
-Finding demo sites to visit and see the yields in person
Information Architecture
Our first step in developing this website was to outline the information architecture of the site.
Localization
From user research, we realized that localized content is very important to our main user. In order to ensure that each user receives the most local content we designed a “viewing from” select. We will use the users current location based on their zip code. However, if the user has their current location hidden from the browser or their plot of land is not near where they are currently viewing from the user needs a way to manage that.
Here are two separate approaches I designed for communicating to the user this functionality. In both cases, we would only show the messaging when they select the agronomy section for the first time.
I decided to go with “Sketch 2” because it is less intrusive and doesn’t pause the user flow.
Wireframes
After we agreed upon the sitemap I designed the wireframes. Again, I started with the audience and their desires.
Finding a Seed Advisor in order to purchase seed.
Viewing local yields produced by the different seed products.
Reading about Golden Harvest agronomic news
Bonus:
-Learning about the most recent Hybrids/Seed Technology
-Finding demo sites to visit and see the plants in person
Yield Results Page Interaction
The Yield Results page searches for yield results based on the user’s location, crop year, crop and by Hybrid. This was a highly interactive page. Therefore, it called for more in depth wireframes and business requirements.
Final Website
http://www.goldenharvestseeds.com/
Takeaways
The Syngenta team was happy with the outcome of the website. However, it would have benefitted both MW and Syngenta if we set up some precise metrics to measure the success of the website launch. The metrics we used weren’t backed up by analytics.
Click through prototypes seemed to be very successful in communicating to our Syngenta counterparts as they are not advanced in their digital knowledge.