Remote Fan Control

Company

AGI Digital

Role

Designer

Year

2021

Project

Shipped

Remote fan control allowed farmers to override Suretrack's automation from anywhere, offering them greater autonomy over grain bins.

Final solution for the remote fan control feature on desktop and mobile.

Problem

Farmers often need to override Suretrack's automation of grain bin fans, a process that involves physically reaching the bin to flip a switch. This, however, disables the platform's ability to control fans, requiring a second trip to restore automation. A farmer may be miles from the bin, making overriding the fans a significant time commitment and causing frustration for AGI’s customers.

A user journey diagram was created to show the major pain point farmers were dealing with when overriding fan settings.

Testing Insight

Editing equipment type was rarely used, making fan control the priority feature.

Requirements

I was tasked with designing a feature to allow farmer’s the ability to override fans without traveling to the grain bin. Due to hardware constraints, this feature was required to be paired with the board assignment settings, which was also needing a UI overhaul.

• Design feature to allow farmers to override fans
• Pair new feature with board assignments
• Communicate mode of a bin’s physical switch
• Improve UI of switch assignment setting
• Revamp mobile UI

This was the existing design for editing equipment assignments on b-boards. A UI/UX overhaul was requested with the implementation of the new remote fan control feature.

Discovery

To begin I discussed the project with stakeholders, hardware engineers, and customer success representatives to gain a deeper understanding of the issues users were facing, business requirements, and the hardware constraints that would impact design.

Design Audit

With a UI redesign of the board assignments as one of the requirements, I combed through the existing design looking for ways to enhance both the look and user experience of editing board assignments. Numerous opportunities for improvement were discovered.

UI/UX issues to improve: 1. Typographic hierarchy 2. No labels on slots 3. Odd slot placement with empty slots 4. Switch illustration lacked context 5. Small labels 6. Spacing/alignment 7. No unique equipment labels 8. Edit button placement/styling 9. No empty state for slots 10. Image only there to fill white space 11. B-board section elements too small on mobile 12. Labels reduced to a single letter 13. Slots changed placement from desktop 14. Spacing/alignment 15. Dropdown menus only list equipment types with a single letter 16. Dropdown menus not necessary with only four potential options 17. Description text for menu options shouldn't have been needed 18. Border switching outline color isn't necessary 19. Button spacing/alignment

User Flow

After understanding how editing board assignments functioned, I mapped out how the remote fan control could be implemented with the existing board assignment function.

User flow diagram showing a user's path to edit equipment type or override fan settings.

Sketches

Before jumping into Figma I sketched out ideas for how the remote control feature might be laid out.

Early sketches of the remote fan control feature.

Iterate, Test, Review

The goals for this feature were to communicate the state of the physical switch, have consistent placement for each equipment slot, provide feedback if a slot was unequipped, and allow the user to quickly override a fan’s mode.

Numerous iterations were explored, tested, and reviewed by stakeholders, developers and customer success teams. Testing the designs showed us a handful of refinement opportunities. The error message made users feel they did something wrong, blue status chips on the physical switch looked too much like buttons, redundant instructions on cards created too much visual clutter, and the illustrated dial gave users a visual connection with the physical board installed on bins. This feedback was used to refine and improve the final design.

A handful of iterations for the remote fan control feature.

Conclusion

Addressing feedback resulted in the removal of the warning message in favor of a tooltip that explained why the toggle couldn’t be used when the physical switch was in the wrong mode. The blue status chips for the physical switch were adjusted to a simpler, bold text that received emphasis on the active mode. Instruction text was pulled out of the cards and placed under the section header, reducing visual clutter inside the cards.

Cards were used to visually separate each slot on a b-board. With four slots on each b-board, this helped farmers easily scan through equipment and maintain slot placement on mobile devices even when all slots were not assigned.

Remote Fan Control removed a major pain point of farmer’s and saved them significant time when needing to override the platform. It also helped AGI build trust with customers by allowing them to take the reigns for their fans when they felt the need to.