Soil Carbon Sensor
User Research
With Alex Coleman, Leona Das, and Ruby Wang
Team: SEED
Background: SEED was developing the Radicle, a handheld soil carbon sensor designed to increase smallholders' knowledge of their farms and ability to cultivate abundant harvests, all while sequestering carbon back into the earth's soil. SEED had venture capitalist investors hooked, but could not quite figure out how to attract potential buyers.
Challenge: How might SEED demonstrate the value of the Radicle to consumers so as to attract potential buyers?
Defining the Research Question(s)
We began our research by interviewing smallholders from many different kinds of farms. We aimed to determine smallholders' key needs and their attitudes towards the Radicle.
Initial Interviews
We found that smallholders failed to connect with the Radicle's current value proposition. The ability to increase and monitor carbon levels was not a capability they cared much about.
"Amount of carbon in my soil is not a metric I care about."
With this key insight in mind, we developed two refined research questions.
Research Question 1:
What do customers want the Radicle to be capable of doing?
Research Question 2:
How can SEED market the Radicle to be attractive to customers?
Designing the Test(s)
We began to devise two tests, one for each of our research questions, in order to get a better understanding of how to solve the problem.
Question 1
What do customers want the Radicle to be capable of doing?
Test 1: Features
Potential customers are presented with a prototype of the Radicle. A sticky note poses as the Radicle's screen. They are asked to draw on the screen what they would like the device to monitor and what capacities the device would ideally have. They are also asked to demonstrate how they think the device should be used.
Question 2
How can SEED market the Radicle to be attractive to customers?
Test 2: Marketing
Potential customers are handed plaques printed with various advertising strategies. They are asked to rank the plaques from most convincing advertisement to least convincing advertisement.
The video below demonstrates how the tests were run.
Testing
We performed both tests on 9 smallholders of various backgrounds.
Results
After recording the results of our tests, we compiled our findings into a slide deck, which we presented to SEED's CEO and Chief Brand Officer.
Test 1: Features
It turns out that these potential customers did not care much about the prospect of measuring carbon concentration. Instead, they said they prioritized measuring other things, such as nitrogen concentration, temperature, and moisture. They also recommended that the Radicle's screen be at the top of the device instead of the side (which was how the current model was designed) so that they did not need to bend so low to observe the device's readings.
Test 2: Marketing
This group of potential customers generally preferred a "results-based" method of advertising, one in which the device's impact was promoted, over a "feature-based" method, one in which the device's capabilities were promoted. In short, the users preferred the message "this device will make your farm better" over "this device can do x, y, and z." Specifically, the interviewed farmers were generally most convinced by messages that advertised the Radicle's ability to increase crop yield.
Proposal
When we shared our findings with SEED's management, we also proposed an idea:
Smallholders are not interested in spending hundreds of dollars to be able to measure carbon concentration. If SEED wants to empower smallholders to have this specific capacity, perhaps SEED needs to create an attractive product in which carbon monitoring is one of many features. For example, a more generalized soil monitor, one that measures carbon as well as nitrogen, nutrients, humidity, and temperature, and is proven to increase crop yields, might attract more customers. At the same time, it would achieve SEED's goal of making carbon monitoring more accessible to all.