Dashboard to communicate environmental sample analysis to poultry and livestock farmers.
The Challenge
Barnwell Bio, a YC-backed ag-biotech startup, had built a powerful pipeline to analyze livestock waste for microbial data—tracking everything from gut health to pathogen presence. But they hadn’t yet defined how this data should be delivered to the people who needed it most: farmers.
My Process
1. Understanding the System To bridge biology and usability, I needed to grasp the full system:
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What Barnwell's data pipeline could detect
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What daily decisions farmers were making
- What insights would meaningfully shift behavior
2. Into the Field
I spoke directly with farmers, ranch managers, and feedlot operators. I also observed daily routines across two farms. My goal: uncover latent needs, not just stated ones.
Insights included:
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Alerts were more useful than dashboards.
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"Comparisons to peers" helped build trust in new data.
- Farmers needed clarity—not more charts.
3. Brainstorm & Validation
I distilled the feedback into 3 core UX principles:
1. One-screen overview – Immediate answers, zero hunting
2. Plain language alerts – “Unusual pathogen spike” > “Elevated alpha diversity”
3. Regional context – Give farmers a sense of whether their data is normal
I created low-fi mockups in Figma and walked farmers through them in feedback sessions. I learned which words resonated and which confused. One rancher said: “This is the first time I’ve seen data that actually feels useful.”
4. Reflection
This project taught me how to translate complex science into tools that fit real-world workflows. I had to bridge the gap between researchers and farmers, distilling metagenomic data into insights they could trust and act on. It pushed me to think systemically, communicate across disciplines, and design for clarity—not just usability.
FINAL DELIVERABLE