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The Coffee Journey
The road toward transparency
UX Research I Supply chain I Context Mapping
Objective Conduct research along the coffee supply chain to identify, validate and test, improvements and opportunities to use technology as a means of supporting traceability and increasing transparency.
Focus groups I Future scenarios I Personas
Role
I led the field research activities, and experiments, and guided the team through the discovery phase.
I was in charge of designing, testing, and iterating, research materials used to conduct contextmapping, such as interview guides, creative sessions, future vision concept cards, posters, and a set of elements that helped throughout the sessions which were held with different stakeholders.
Guided the local team along the phases and communicated with clients' leaders to manage activities, and avoid friction points informing them of the purpose and objectives across methods, visits, and outcomes.
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Conducted correlational research to validate a set of hypotheses and understand the way in which the solution elements were better integrated in a systemic manner.
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Visualized the solution design to make it understandable at different levels and iterated its components in an easier fashion.
Visualized the supply chain map from beginning to end, making use of creative sessions with each person responsible for each stage.
Team structure
There were two main teams and collaborative sessions with other colleagues.
The global team is composed of project managers, field engineers, strategic designers, solution architecture engineers, and consultants.
The local team is composed of an Implementation manager, strategic designers, field engineers, and solution architecture engineers.
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Team dynamics workflow
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Global alignment and creative sessions
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One-on-one remote interviews
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Remote focus groups
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Remote socialization activities
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Local field visits across the stages of the supply chain
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Experiments testing onsite, supporting the implementation
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Design Process
The project followed a hybrid methodology using Agile and Contextmapping which allowed the team to be more involved with the findings and iterate quickly.
The materials were updated on each time zone, so the team on the other side started their process with the latest developments.
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Engage and align with the stakeholders, understand their needs, and define solution components that provide value
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Create design hypotheses to be tested
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Define activities according to the schedule at hand
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Structure the activities on a roadmap
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Carry on field visits
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Test and iterate key components and their hypotheses
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Learn and iterate
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Deliver implementation roadmap and recommendations
Deliverables
Supply chain map From farm to port, the process' interactions were depicted per user, enabling stakeholders to see in detail each step of the process and identify valuable touchpoints, data points, and optimization opportunities.
Research materials that were used during the field research, provided added value for both the actual solution and future interventions.
Solution architecture from a technical perspective using user flows that guided the development process.
Roadmap with possible interventions for the coming seasons and relevant opportunities to connect them with the clients' vision.
Recommendation elements that were uncovered across multiple sessions provided value to the clients' current practices and helped them to structure priority actions.
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Solution blueprint for payment verification within the ecosystem and incentive systems for traceability of the harvest. Build and test key solution components.
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Insights and challenges
Along the process the materials that were designed prior to some sessions, had to be stripped out and redesigned to resonate with the coffee growers and different workers of the supply chain.
The schedule was a challenge specially the fact that we were conducting field visits in regions where the road conditions, accessibility were difficult and internet service was not at hand. For that reason, we had to debrief with the local team and tweak materials on the go.
Communication issues across time zones, having 14 hours difference between locations, was overcame by setting an active schedule, following an agile process and using shared time to focus on the global needs to move forward.
Record everything you do, during the field research stages, most of the truly valuable insights came from bits that were right by the end of sessions, journeys, informal debriefings.
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Enjoy the journey, interact with every person to make the solution approach robust and inclusive.​