Case Study · Agricultural community & opportunity
Fharmer connects farmers, students, traders, employers and job seekers through a social feed, communities and jobs. I designed the web, mobile and admin experience, including Research and a request-led Demand Hub that remained in development.
Bring social interaction, agricultural jobs and trading into one platform for people with different needs.
As the sole freelance Product Designer, I designed the web, mobile and admin experiences and adapted the marketplace as its direction changed.
I designed connected buyer and supplier flows for the request-first model, from posting a need and comparing offers to negotiating, paying and confirming delivery.
Feed, Community and Jobs launched, with approximately 350 users reported in the June 2024 pitch deck. Demand Hub remained in development.
Fharmer began as a social platform for farmers, students, traders, employers and job seekers.
Each group came for something different. Farmers and students wanted to share and learn, employers and job seekers wanted to hire and find work, and traders wanted to buy and sell. Those activities usually live in separate places: social apps, job boards and online marketplaces.
I joined before the product existed and worked in weekly sprints with the product owner, product manager, engineers and marketer.
What we built was shaped by interviews, competitor analysis and the product owner’s 10+ years in agriculture. I made the design decisions; what went into each release was agreed with the team and the product owner.
Feed and Community were both social, so each got its own tab: Feed for posts from everyone, Community for groups built around a shared interest. Jobs, Research and Demand Hub got their own tabs too, so job ads, articles and supply requests didn’t get lost among everyday posts.
See posts and updates from people across the platform.
Join groups and talk about a shared farming interest.
Find a job, or post one for people in agriculture.
Publish research articles and discuss them.
Formerly Marketplace. Post what you need to buy, get offers from suppliers and arrange delivery.
The same product on every screen size, from splash to sign in.
Email or Google sign-in, with the people Fharmer is for front and centre.
Posts and updates from everyone, with trending topics and people to follow.
Groups built around a shared interest, with job and research highlights alongside.
Search and filter agricultural roles, or post one.
Submit, browse and upvote research articles.
Buyers post what they need; suppliers reply with an offer.
I spoke with a small number of farmers, students and job seekers, learned from the product owner’s years in agriculture, and looked at how social apps, job boards and online marketplaces already work.
Learn who the app was for, what the business needed and how the agriculture sector works.
Ask farmers, students and job seekers what they wanted to get from a platform like this.
Compare how Facebook, X/Twitter and Quora get people posting and discussing, how LinkedIn, Indeed and Jobberman handle job posts and applications, and how Jiji and Facebook Marketplace handle product listings.
Learn from shared research and contribute findings of their own.
Find farming jobs and show their work experience.
Post a job and reach people who work in agriculture.
Post what they need to buy, or offer to supply it.
Marketplace started as a place for sellers to list products. The product owner then proposed a request-first model, so Marketplace split into two hubs: Sales Hub for the original listings and Demand Hub for requests. Sales Hub was later paused, and Marketplace became Demand Hub. I redesigned the screens and flows at each step.
Sellers create listings; buyers search and browse available products.
The original selling flow became Sales Hub, and Demand Hub was added so buyers could post what they needed.
Sales Hub was paused. Marketplace became request-first: buyers post a need and suppliers respond with offers.
Demand Hub was the most complex part of my work. A request, several offers, back-and-forth on price, payment and delivery all had to stay easy to follow for both the buyer and the supplier. It was in development at the time of my involvement.
Buyers post exactly what they need instead of searching listings and hoping someone sells it. Suppliers see the request and reply with quantity, quality, price and delivery terms.
Every offer and counter-offer is saved in a history, so both sides can see how the price changed. People also got a separate Demand Hub username, so they could buy and sell without showing their main profile name. This came from design reviews and talks with the product owner.
After user feedback, suppliers add product photos and the rider’s details before sending an order, and the buyer confirms when it arrives. The supplier arranges delivery. The plan was for Fharmer to take a 5% commission and hold the payment until the buyer confirms, with disputes sorted out offline.
Some changes came from user feedback, others from design reviews and talks with the product owner. Each card says where the change came from.
People could buy and sell under a Demand Hub username instead of showing their main profile name every time.
A record of every offer and counter-offer made long negotiations easier to follow.
Chats could include more than two people.
Suppliers add product photos and rider details, and the buyer confirms the order arrived before payment is released.
The first release let people post, join groups and find jobs. Research and Demand Hub used the same account, so nobody had to sign up twice. Getting verified once applied everywhere, and Demand Hub had a shortcut to the same verification steps.
Live in the first release.
Verify once and it shows across Fharmer.
Designed; still being built.
I designed the admin and staff workspaces for activity review, member and content management, support, and access control. Their launch status is unknown.
Analytics for users, activity, roles, locations and feature use; searchable user records, verification documents and account actions.
Jobs and Research management; Demand Hub needs, offers, negotiation and order statuses. A separate legacy Marketplace area also appears in the admin file.
Ticket handling, knowledge base categories and articles, staff accounts, roles and permissions.
Admins can search users and filter them by status and role. Each profile shows the person’s role in agriculture, their experience and their verification documents. From there, admins can verify someone or remove their verification, suspend or restore an account, and change what they can access.
Verification covers the whole platform; the shortcut in Demand Hub opens the same verification steps.
Jobs have a table and an add-job form for the company, role, location and what applicants need. Research has All and Featured views, search by category and a way to remove articles. Articles were meant to go live without approval, but admins can still edit or remove them later.
For Demand Hub, admins follow each request through its stages: waiting for offers, negotiating, waiting for payment and delivery. I designed this while Demand Hub was still being built.
Support tickets move between open, on hold, escalated, closed and reopened, and each has a message thread for replies. Settings control who can suspend users, approve verification, create jobs and assign roles. Help articles are grouped into categories.
A separate staff dashboard covers the main support tools.
A deep teal primary with a fresh green accent and the logo’s warm orange, Raleway for text and Poppins for buttons and filters. The components cover social posts, job posts, groups and polls.
Raleway is used for text; Poppins for buttons and filters.
Harvest is in. Sharing a few photos from the farm this morning.
Which is your favorite fruit?
24 votes · 12 hours left · UNDOAgro Farms is looking to hire a lab scientist. You will carry out tests for plants and ani…
Apply1 day agoBenson James commented on your post:
This is lovelyBenson James upvoted your research
Benson James just followed you
Follow BackFeed, Community and Jobs launched first. A June 2024 pitch deck recorded how many people were using them. These numbers are for those launched features, not Demand Hub, which was still being built.
I designed the feed, communities, jobs, research, marketplace direction, Demand Hub, mobile experience and admin tools as the sole designer. The first six-month phase extended to twelve. Looking back, I would record a release boundary and acceptance criteria for each module at the start of every phase, so the team could distinguish a completed design from a build ready to ship.
Every member feature had an admin side to it: someone reviewing verification, moderating content, answering tickets or setting permissions. Those tools needed the same care as the member experience. Next time, before development starts, I’d decide who can take each high-risk action, such as suspending an account or settling a payment dispute, and make sure every one is recorded.
Next steps if the product continues
Run scenario-based sessions with buyers and suppliers from posting a need through offer comparison, negotiation, dispatch and receipt. Record where they lose track of terms or responsibility.
Document failed delivery, partial fulfilment, disputed quality, refunds and the staff decision path before enabling escrow. Confirm that the 5% fee is visible at the point of commitment.
If Demand Hub launches, instrument request-to-offer and completed-order stages before claiming impact. Test SMS alerts and reply flows with farmers who have limited internet access.
