AgriTech products fail in the field, not in the demo. A design and research practice built for office software produces interfaces growers cannot use in the conditions they actually work in. We research the operation, the season, and the dirt, then design for them.
The Problem
Research done over video calls misses how growers actually work
Remote usability sessions and survey panels capture what a grower says in a quiet office, not what happens in a planter cab during a 16-hour day. The real context – glare on a screen at noon, intermittent cellular in the back forty, one-handed operation while watching a row unit – never shows up in a Zoom interview. Design decisions get made against a fictional desk user, and the product collapses the first time it meets a real field. By the time the gap surfaces in churn, you have shipped a season of features nobody can operate.
Interfaces assume connectivity and attention growers do not have
A SaaS-trained team designs for always-on broadband and a user staring at the screen. Growers work in dead zones, in moving equipment, in conditions where looking down for three seconds is a safety risk. Flows that require constant sync, multi-step wizards, or fine touch targets are unusable in the cab and get abandoned. The product tests fine in the office and fails in the operation, and the team blames adoption instead of the design assumptions baked in upstream.
Feature decisions ignore the agronomic and seasonal reality of the workflow
Product teams without ag context prioritize features by what is easy to build or what demos well, not by where the work actually concentrates across the season. A tool that ignores the rhythm of planting, spraying, scouting, and harvest forces growers to bend their operation around the software during the weeks they have zero spare attention. Research that does not map the seasonal workflow produces a backlog that solves problems growers do not have in the months they would have time to care. The roadmap drifts from the real job and adoption stays shallow.
Designing for the grower forgets the agronomist and dealer who configure and trust the tool
Growers rarely adopt a tool in isolation – an agronomist often sets it up, interprets the data, and vouches for the recommendation, and a dealer may be the one who sells and supports it. Design and research that only studies the grower misses the advisor who decides whether the product earns trust. If the data view does not give the agronomist a defensible read or the setup does not fit the dealer's support model, the tool stalls regardless of how clean the grower screen is. The team optimizes one persona and ignores the two people who actually drive adoption.
How We Help
We start with field research, not a survey. The first thing we look at is how the work actually happens across a real operation – in the cab, in the shop, at the kitchen table where the buying decision gets made – because every wrong design assumption in AgriTech traces back to research that never left the office.
From that research we build a design strategy anchored to the seasonal workflow rather than a feature list. We map where work and attention concentrate across planting, spraying, scouting, and harvest, and we prioritize the design and research effort against the moments that actually carry the operation. The strategy defines what the product must do flawlessly in the field versus what can live in a calmer planning view, so the roadmap reflects how a grower's year actually runs instead of what is convenient to build.
Execution is hands-on product design built for field conditions. We design flows that survive dead zones, glare, gloves, and a moving cab – offline-tolerant, glanceable, forgiving of interruption – and we prototype against the real environment, not a clean office. We design the agronomist's data view to be defensible and the dealer's setup to fit their support model, so the people who drive adoption can actually do their part.
Measurement is field validation, not demo applause. We test prototypes with real growers in real conditions and watch whether the design holds up where it has to work, then we instrument the shipped product to see where growers actually struggle, abandon, or work around it. We measure task completion under field conditions, adoption depth across the season, and whether agronomists and dealers trust the tool enough to recommend it – because that is the real signal a design works.
The whole engagement is built to close the gap between how a SaaS team imagines the user and how a grower, agronomist, and dealer actually behave. We bring research that gets out of the office, design judgment shaped by field constraints, and an embedded operating model that keeps the work tied to reality instead of drifting back to desk assumptions.
What we deliver
- Field research that observes growers, agronomists, and dealers in real working conditions, not over video calls
- Seasonal workflow map prioritizing design effort against where work and attention concentrate
- Field-tolerant interface design – offline-aware, glanceable, glove- and glare-proof
- Agronomist data views and dealer setup flows designed for the people who drive adoption
- Field-validated prototypes and instrumented post-launch research showing where growers actually struggle
Every failed AgriTech interface traces back to research that never left the office. The product that wins was designed by people who sat in the cab, watched the dead zones, and saw the grower abandon a flow they swore in the interview they would use.
Our Methodology
Our product design and research build runs as a focused engagement that replaces office-bound assumptions with field-grounded design. The first phase is contextual field research – ride-alongs and observation across a real operation and a real season-window – mapping how growers, agronomists, and dealers actually work and where the product has to survive. We turn that into a seasonal workflow model that tells us what to design for first.
The second phase is design and prototyping built for field constraints: offline-tolerant, glanceable, interruption-forgiving flows for the grower, defensible data views for the agronomist, and a setup that fits the dealer. We prototype against the real environment and validate with growers in the conditions they work in, not in a conference room demo.
What makes this different from a design studio or a SaaS UX team is that we do the research where the work happens and design against agronomic and seasonal reality, not desk assumptions. A typical studio ships beautiful comps that test well in the office. We ship designs that hold up in the cab and earn the trust of the agronomist and dealer who actually move a grower to adopt.
How We Work
Initial engagements typically run 3 to 5 months because field research, seasonal workflow mapping, design, and in-field validation all take real time and at least one workflow window to observe honestly. The first 30 days are field research and synthesis – ride-alongs, observation, and interviews with growers, agronomists, and dealers – producing the seasonal workflow model and the design priorities. Days 31 to 90 are design and prototyping built for field conditions, validated with real users. The remaining months refine against field feedback and instrument the shipped experience.
Our team includes a research lead who runs the field work and synthesis and a product designer who owns the interface and prototyping, working embedded with your product manager and engineers. From your side we need access to real growers and to your agronomist and dealer relationships for research and validation, plus engineering partnership so designs ship rather than sit in Figma. We handle research, design, and validation.
The cadence is weekly working sessions through the build and weekly design reviews once prototyping is live, with research readouts at each phase boundary so the whole team sees what the field actually told us. Most AgriTech companies see the first hard insights within 30 days as field research surfaces gaps the office never caught, with the real proof point being shipped designs that growers complete and adopt under real conditions rather than abandon.
- Designs validated in real field conditions rather than office demos
- Roadmap and feature priority anchored to the seasonal workflow
- Agronomist and dealer adoption designed for, not assumed
- Deeper, more durable grower adoption from field-tolerant interfaces
If your agritech company needs product design & research leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a product design and research engagement cost for an AgriTech company?
Design and research engagements typically run in the $20K-$45K per month range depending on the depth of field research and how much design and prototyping is in scope. That is less than building an internal team of a research lead and a senior product designer with real ag context, which is hard to hire for.
Why does AgriTech product design need field research instead of remote interviews?
Because the conditions that break an AgriTech product – glare, dead zones, gloves, a moving cab, a 16-hour day – never appear in a video call. A grower will tell you in an interview that a flow is fine and then abandon it the first time they try it in the planter.
How does the design team integrate with our product and engineering staff?
We embed with your product manager and engineers rather than operating as an outside studio that ships comps and disappears. We pair design with your engineering reality so what we draw can actually be built and shipped, and we run weekly working sessions to keep design, research, and build in sync.
What makes Winston Francois different from a traditional product design agency?
A traditional design agency does research over calls and ships polished comps that demo well and fail in the field. We get into the cab, study the seasonal workflow, and design against agronomic reality and field constraints.
How do you measure whether the design is actually working?
We validate prototypes with real growers in real field conditions and watch whether the design holds where it has to work. Once shipped, we instrument the product to see where growers struggle, abandon, or build workarounds, and we track task completion under field conditions and adoption depth across the season.
What type of AgriTech company is the right fit for this service?
Companies building a product growers actually operate in the field – in equipment, in the shop, on the move – where office-designed software keeps failing on adoption. AgriTech companies with product-market fit on the value but shallow adoption, or teams from a SaaS background designing for ag for the first time, see the strongest fit.
