How can a farmer manage his plantations through a single application?
Syngenta is a global leader in agriculture, present in over 180 countries. The goal was to design a producer-focused app that unifies digital farming, crop tools, and Syngenta’s commercial ecosystem across multiple regions.
Product Design Process
Discovery
Understand the business goals, product context, and user needs through research and interviews.
Ideation
Map flows, define features, and transform insights into actionable design solutions.
Prototyping
Create wireframes and interactive prototypes for validation and stakeholder alignment.
Testing
Conduct usability tests and refinements before handoff to development.
Objectives and Expected Outcomes
The goal is to promote both physical products, such as seeds and crop protection chemicals and advanced digital solutions for crop management.
Main objectives:
- Reach customers who were previously offline.
- Build and strengthen relationships with farmers by offering integrated physical and digital solutions.
- Acquire new customers through precision agriculture tools and digital platforms.
- Provide personalized recommendations for seeds and crop protection products based on the company’s portfolio
Projected to attract over 400,000 users across 35 countries.
Expected 32% growth in seed and crop protection product sales.
Expected 45% growth in agricultural software sales.
Freemium Software and
Recommendation Engine
The strategy to achieve our business goals was centered on offering freemium or limited versions of our agricultural software products, such as harvest management and climate tools, to attract users and drive conversion to full-license subscriptions.
For seeds and crop-protection products, the approach focused on delivering farm-specific product recommendations grounded in scientific data, field by field. This ensured that each grower received the optimal seed type for their operation, strengthening product adoption and long-term loyalty.
Understanding the Problem
The initial challenge was to identify why users had difficulty accessing Syngenta’s climate, monitoring, and crop management tools.
I conducted interviews with internal teams across Europe and the Middle East and end users of Syngenta’s weather and monitoring software to uncover needs, pain points, and motivations.
What we found out
• Users struggled to find Syngenta’s different digital tools and services in one place.
• The most valued features included Spray Radar (optimal irrigation timing) and weather analytics (temperature, humidity, wind, and precipitation).
The opportunity was clear: build a unified experience that bridges Syngenta Global with small producers.
Defining What Matters Most
I benchmarked global agtech competitors to map key features and identify usability patterns. To align priorities, I facilitated a MoSCoW workshop with stakeholders, defining the MVP scope and building the feature backlog.
MVP Priorities
• Unified dashboard with weather and crop insights
• Spray Radar and geolocated recommendations
• Loyalty and voucher systems for seeds and crop protection products
Core Features
• Map View & Insights: Advanced climate data and crop growth analysis based on the farmer’s region and crop type.
• Geolocation Tools: Users can draw their farm area on the map to receive localized insights.
• Recommendations & Offers: Dynamic content with reports, loyalty vouchers, and personalized Syngenta offers.
Mapview and Insights
One of the app’s core features is the interactive map displaying climate data and meteorological information, giving farmers advanced, region-specific weather insights.
To make navigation more intuitive, I designed a tab system at the top of the screen, allowing users to quickly switch between different climate views on the map. We also introduced the ability to draw directly on the map to mark the exact boundaries of their farm, enabling more precise, location-based insights.
Insights about the farm
A key differentiator we developed is the Insights layer, where users receive crop-growth information tailored to what they are planting, along with disease-risk assessments.
Recommendations and Crop Management
Other key strengths of the app include the recommendations hub, where we deliver tailored offers, advanced agronomy reports, and Syngenta’s partnership programs for growers.
Spray Radar
The Spray Radar feature encourages users to regularly open the app by highlighting the optimal moments for spraying and irrigation. We also implemented a voucher system for seeds and crop-protection products, further supporting farmers throughout the season.
Recommendations and Crop Management
Other key strengths of the app include the recommendations hub, where we deliver tailored offers, advanced agronomy reports, and Syngenta’s partnership programs for growers.
Effective clicks and ease of finding information
Before developer implementation, usability tests were conducted with the interactive prototypes using Maze. I defined user navigation missions within the map and insights views to collect data on time and effective clicks.
