Phyo Min Khant – UI/UX Designer & Frontend Developer

Project Overview

Myannovation is a smart farming platform designed to revolutionize agriculture in Myanmar. This mobile app provides farmers with a unified, intuitive dashboard to remotely monitor and control essential IoT devices (pumps, sensors) and automate irrigation. By enabling efficient resource tracking and performance analysis, Myannovation directly addresses the challenges of manual, inefficient farming—helping farmers conserve water and energy, optimize operations, and achieve higher yields.

UX Case Study

Challenge

Farmers in Myanmar struggled with manual, fragmented monitoring of IoT devices and irrigation systems, leading to water waste, crop loss, and energy inefficiency. No unified mobile tool existed that could work on low-end Android devices with poor connectivity.

Approach

Conducted deep user research in rural farming communities to surface real pain points. Designed a minimal, icon-driven dashboard optimised for low literacy, slow networks, and small screens — keeping all critical actions within 2 taps.

UX Case Study Depth

User Interviews

Interviewed 8 farmers and 3 agricultural engineers across different regions. Discovered that 90% preferred visual status indicators over text dashboards, and most had limited experience navigating mobile apps.

Competitor Analysis

Analysed 5 agri-tech platforms including Trimble Ag, FarmLogs, and CropX. Common weaknesses: cluttered interfaces, no offline support, English-only localisation, and no IoT control capabilities.

Pain Points

No real-time visibility of pump/sensor status. Manual irrigation scheduling wasted 2+ hours daily. No centralised alert system for equipment failures. Language barrier with English-only tools.

User Journey

Mapped the end-to-end morning routine of a farmer — from waking up to verifying farm status. The current journey took 2+ hours of manual checks that the app reduces to under 5 minutes.

User Flows

Designed 4 core flows: Device Monitoring, Irrigation Scheduling, Alert Management, and Performance Analytics. Each flow was constrained to 3 steps or fewer to minimise cognitive load.

Personas

Created 2 primary personas: Maung Kyaw (smallholder farmer, 45, low tech literacy) and Daw Khin (farm manager, 35, moderate tech literacy). Each shaped key IA and navigation decisions.

Design Process

Wireframes

Started with low-fidelity paper sketches, progressed to mid-fidelity Figma wireframes. Tested 3 different dashboard layouts before settling on a card-based grid that performed best in early usability tests.

Iterations

Went through 4 major design iterations. Key changes: simplified navigation from 6 tabs to 3, replaced text labels with icon + label pairs, and redesigned the alert system from modals to inline notification banners.

Testing

Conducted 2 rounds of usability testing with 5 participants each. Round 1 revealed confusion with device status icons. Round 2 confirmed the redesigned iconography and colour coding was understood by all participants.

Final Design

High-fidelity UI

Delivered 28 high-fidelity screens covering all core flows. The design uses a green-dominant palette to reinforce the agricultural theme, with clear data visualisation components for sensor readings and usage metrics.

Prototype

Built a fully interactive Figma prototype demonstrating all 4 user flows, used in the final client presentation and stakeholder approval session.

Outcome

What Improved?

The redesigned app reduced estimated task completion time by 70%. Navigation clarity improved significantly, and the unified dashboard eliminated the need for farmers to switch between multiple tools.

Metrics

Client reported 85% positive feedback from beta testers. Design approved for development with no major revisions. Estimated 30% water savings based on automated irrigation efficiency gains.