The mAgri Design Toolkit is a collection of instructions, tools, and stories to help develop and scale mobile agriculture products by applying a user-centered design approach.
Many mAgri services that have launched in emerging markets have suffered from low user adoption, despite coming from leading mobile network operators and value-added service (VAS) providers. This toolkit is one of the outcomes of a partnership between the GSMA mAgri Programme and frog, and provides operational guidance on how to bring the user-centred design approach into the product development process to better connect mAgri services with the needs of farmers and other key actors in the ecosystem.
The GSMA mAgri Program partnered with frog to bring the user-centered design approach into the product development process, to better connect the mAgri services with the needs of farmers and other key actors in the ecosystem. frog has been coaching UX experts within each of the MNOs, working closely with them to establish and practice user-centered design methods tailored to the mobile agriculture context and needs. All the tools provided as part of the mAgri Design Toolkit have been tested, proven, and refined multiple times on the ground before being included in this collection.
The design toolkit is intended as an instrument to provide operational guidance to the development and implementation of mAgri services. Designing services around the needs of the rural user is critical to the success of mAgri services. Besides service design, MNOs and value-added-services (VAS) providers must form partnerships with ecosystem players, including agriculture content providers. They must also identify the best-suited technology delivery channels for their target markets, and then implement viable marketing strategies, including both above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) marketing. All of these elements are intertwined with user design and are critical to a viable and sustainable mAgri business model.
The mAgri user-centered design process focuses on engaging the farmer at any stage of the product development, from the early moment of identifying the opportunities and generating concepts, to the advanced stages of product realization, execution, and scaling.
You can download this toolkit for free here.
