Redesigning an Irrigation Controller for Field Operators
Reshaping an early MVP tablet controller into a clearer, field-ready experience for irrigation technicians and operators — grounded in usability testing before launch.
- Complex Systems
- Usability Research
- Field UX
- Tablet Controller
- Operational Workflows
This project focused on GrowSphere Controller, an early-MVP tablet product from Netafim that served as the field-facing control point for irrigation systems — sensors, pumps, dosing, alerts, and irrigation programs managed from one touch interface.
I joined about one month after the project began, taking over the Controller UX/UI work midstream while another designer was on maternity leave. My first step was to align with the existing direction. But as I learned the system, I identified gaps that required broader UX and UI changes — not just visual polish.
After the tablet Controller work, I also contributed to a mobile version of the product — a smaller field surface for quick status checks, alerts, and lightweight operational actions.
A complex operational system in a field-first context.
The MVP needed to work in a fundamentally different context from a desktop product: outdoors, under bright daylight, operated by technicians and field teams, often while troubleshooting live irrigation issues. At the same time, the engineering setup limited many tablet-native interaction patterns, so the redesign had to be both field-appropriate and technically realistic.
Real field constraints shaped every decision.
- Outdoor and daylight use — needs strong contrast and quick orientation.
- Touch interface used with gloves or dirty fingers — needs large targets and clear affordances.
- Limited support for swipe gestures, complex collapse/expand patterns, and endless scrolling.
- Slow or unreliable response per click in some flows — fewer, more decisive taps preferred.
- Had to stay aligned with the broader GrowSphere product without copying desktop patterns one-to-one.
What we set out to do.
Four goals framed the redesign.
- 01
Clarify system status and alerts in the field.
Operators needed to understand system state and take the right action at a glance — often under pressure and outdoors.
- 02
Simplify irrigation-program editing.
Reduce unnecessary interaction depth and touch-count in the core operational flows.
- 03
Improve touch usability.
Stronger hierarchy, larger targets, and higher contrast for real field conditions.
- 04
Align with the desktop product without copying it.
Shared vocabulary and mental model with the broader GrowSphere product, but flows reshaped for tablet and field use.
How the work moved.
MVP mapping, gap analysis, field research at Netafim's global summit, synthesis for product leadership, and system-level redesign before production — in that order.
Mapped the MVP and identified system-wide UX gaps.
Aligned with the existing design direction while learning the product, its constraints, and the team's assumptions — then mapped UX and UI gaps across program editing, status states, alert handling, and navigation.
Structured usability testing at Netafim's global summit.
Used Netafim's global summit as a research opportunity, running task-based sessions with technicians and installers around real setup scenarios — including creating irrigation programs under crop, schedule, water-supply, and flow constraints — alongside interviews and feedback workshops.
Synthesized findings for product leadership.
Consolidated the interviews and testing into a structured presentation. The feedback reached the VP of Product directly and helped secure alignment around rethinking the direction before production release.
Led broad UX and UI changes across the Controller.
System-level redesign of dashboard, alert flows, program editing, and cross-screen navigation — grounded in what field technicians actually needed.
What we heard from field technicians.
Findings were rated by severity during synthesis. The five below carried the most weight in shaping the redesign priorities that followed.
Finding 01: Removing a shift was hard to find.
Shift-management actions were buried inside dense edit views. Technicians completing a routine setup couldn't find how to remove a shift they'd just added.
Finding 02: Interval scheduling vs. weekday scheduling was mixed up.
Users conflated interval-based schedules ("every 3 days") with weekday schedules, and couldn't tell which "current day" the program was on within a repeating cycle.
Finding 03: Some controls' behavior wasn't clear.
Increase/decrease buttons and checkbox affordances looked interactive but their exact effect wasn't obvious — users guessed and often mis-stepped.
Finding 04: Status colour codes weren't understood consistently.
Colour-coded status treatments didn't communicate meaning reliably — a real accessibility gap in field conditions with bright daylight and gloves.
Finding 05: Program status and shift status were confused.
Program-level state and shift-level state used similar visual treatment, so operators mixed them up. Two levels of state need two clearly separable reads.
The calls that shaped the work.
Four decisions shaped how the Controller reads and responds in the field.
Design for the moment an alert fires.
We decided
Rebuild alert and fault surfaces around clarity of state, next action, and reversibility.
Why it worked
Alert and fault states had to help operators understand what was happening and what action was available — fast, under pressure, in the field.
Reduce interaction depth for field reliability.
We decided
Fewer, larger, more reliable taps instead of gestures the platform could not support well.
Why it worked
The engineering setup limited many tablet-native gestures and complex interactions, so the redesign leaned into decisive single-tap actions the platform could render fast.
Make touch states visible and readable.
We decided
Give distinct visual treatment to status, pause, resume, manual, high-flow, and uncompleted states.
Why it worked
Usability testing showed that colour-coded status wasn't understood reliably in field conditions, and that operators frequently confused program-level and shift-level state. The redesign gave each state its own text label plus visual treatment, and separated program state from shift state with different rendering — so the read holds up outdoors, with gloves, and across two levels of state at once.
Translate shared product logic into field-first flows.
We decided
Share vocabulary with the broader GrowSphere product, while reshaping flows around field use.
Why it worked
The broader GrowSphere ecosystem included a desktop product led by the Product Design Lead, so shared vocabulary and mental models mattered. But the Controller had to stand on its own as a field-first product: tablet interactions, live operational states, and quick troubleshooting flows could not simply mirror desktop patterns one-to-one.
The redesigned experience.
System-level redesign across dashboard, alerts, program list, program status, and analytics — sharing a consistent visual language tuned for tablet and field use.
The final direction responded directly to the research findings: clearer state hierarchy, more explicit alert handling, and fewer interaction dependencies in the core operational flows.
The same surface, then and now.
Two comparisons that show what the system-level redesign actually changed.
BeforeAfterBefore: dense state information and a slightly scroll-dependent layout made the screen hard to scan in the field.
After: clearer hierarchy, larger targets, and a fully visible state read reduced scanning effort and kept next actions in view.
BeforeAfterBefore: pause states relied on subtle differences that were hard to distinguish at a glance.
After: manual and system pauses became visually distinct, with the reason and resume action surfaced clearly.
Extending the Controller to mobile field actions.
After the tablet Controller work, I also contributed to a mobile version of the product. The challenge was not to shrink the full tablet experience into a phone, but to decide which field actions truly belonged on a smaller, on-the-go surface — mainly status visibility, alerts, and quick operational actions.
0104
Mobile main lines overview — alert state
Quick field awareness across active main lines, showing where attention is needed.
0204
Mobile program detail — high-flow alert
A focused alert state with key data and immediate actions.
0304
Mobile program detail — active state and quick actions
Lightweight controls for actions that make sense on a phone.
0404
Mobile irrigation programs list
A compact list for scanning programs and jumping into the right flow.
A mobile follow-up focused on fast awareness, lightweight actions, and quick navigation — not recreating the full tablet workflow.
What changed.
The redesign gave the product team a clearer, validated direction before production. Technician feedback confirmed many of the issues I had raised and helped turn the redesign from an internal design recommendation into a product-level decision.
Outcomes
- Validated UX gaps through field research — usability testing and interviews with global field technicians confirmed the direction before it shipped.
- Turned field feedback into a clearer product direction before production release — helping product leadership align around the redesign.
- Reworked core Controller flows — dashboard, alert handling, and program editing were updated around validated field needs.
- Made the Controller more field-ready — clearer irrigation status and alerts, larger targets, stronger contrast, and fewer interaction dependencies tuned for real operator conditions.
- Helped technicians feel heard — bringing the redesigned direction back to the same participants who gave the feedback closed the research loop.
Looking back.
The strongest takeaway wasn't a single design move — it was how external validation changed the conversation. When technicians raised the same gaps I had raised internally, the design recommendation became a product decision.