TerraceAg
Experience that cut down land appraisal time by 40%
Taking farmland appraisals to a whole new level of accuracy and efficiency.
Type
Web
Segment
Enterprise (B2B)
Business
Startup
Industry
Land Appraisal and Valuation
Geography
Nebraska, USA
Year
2018 - 2020
Brief
A farmland valuation app that doesn't feel like rocket-science
TerraceAg is a software that helps create accurate appraisals and valuations for farmlands. It optimizes and expedites the appraisal process through data, integration, and automation. We crafted a seamless experience for TerraceAg, so that appraisers find adequate data in easily fathomable format, to make accurate valuations.
Engagement
A splendid team of UX and UI Designers along with Researcher and Strategist successfully innovated this product.
- Disrupting the domain with innovative solution
- Digitizing a historically human centric process
- Bringing insight into data for accurate decisions
Discovery
- User Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Market Research
Ideation
- Brainstorming Workshops
- User Journey
- Information Architecture
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
Design
- UX Design
- UI Design
- Interaction Design
- Design System
- Specifications
“Aubergine Solutions delivered more help than we thought we needed. We’ve received positive feedback from clients of the app we built. They love the simplicity and straightforwardness of the platform.”
Sourabh ChakrabortyProduct Manager, Proto Banao
Challenge
To design an end-to-end automated solution in a highly manual, data heavy domain
“To do justice to the problem at hand, we had to zoom out to understand the process as a whole. At the same time, we had to zoom in to understand each and every data point involved in the appraisal process.”
Jui PandyaSr. UX Designer, Aubergine Solutions
Understanding, how data in land valuation works
Understanding, how data in land valuation works
- Study of existing land appraisal reports
- Exercise to trace data points and patterns
- Understanding of the appraiser’s way of work
- Farmland valuation is a complex and challenging process. The final appraisal report is a product of diligent compliance processes combined with the appraiser’s personal judgement.
- It therefore became essential for us to get an in-depth understanding of the whole compliance process and get a hang of data points that were pivotal in decision making.
- We started with an exercise that helped us get into the appraiser’s shoes, plot data points, and figure out patterns that simplified the exchange of data throughout the process.
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Designing one platform to accommodate a multi-step process
Designing one platform to accommodate a multi-step process
- Designed a comprehensive flow for all the steps
- Integrated tools and resources into one platform
- Reduced frustration around data sourcing
- Made data analysis more concentrated
There are 3 main analytic components involved in the valuation in the process.
Subject property information
The quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial data about the farmland at hand, referred to as Subject Property.
Comparable sales
Appropriate comparable sales matching the subject property derived from available databases.
Workfile analysis
Valuation of the subject property through statistical analysis - quantitative data, formulae and corresponding calculations.
In the more traditional workflow scenario, there are sources and places that a user has to scour through to get access to all this data. We designed a flow that integrated all of this into one tool, so users don’t have to jump from one tool/place to another.
Impact
40% increase in time efficiency, as compared to competition
40% increase in time efficiency, as compared to competition
- Increase in accuracy and efficiency of data processing and reduction in backlog.
- Integration of tools and comps into a single platform, bringing down instances offorgotten data points.
Making the appraisal process digestible for appraisers
Making the appraisal process digestible for appraisers
- UI to accommodate complex functionalities
- Map integration to show crucial data visually
The appraisal process being very data-intense, gets overwhelming to deal with. This creates room for overlooking mistakes, and hence manifests in misjudgments. Therefore, we made sure that the UI accommodates all the complex functionalities, while being simple and usable. This included features like filling subject property information, use map to show critical information visually, an interface to find comparable sales and look them up side by side.
Impact
TerraceAg got acquired by Farm Credit Services of America
TerraceAg got acquired by Farm Credit Services of America
Facilitating dynamic data population for same data points
Facilitating dynamic data population for same data points
- Creation of data tags for same data value
- Dynamic data population throughout forms for same data points
- Easier and speedy updates with less human errors
- Appraisers use values of the same data points at multiple places throughout the process. For eg. A data point ‘Land Acres’ is used at 3 places: viz. the quantitative information section, for calculation in Property analysis, and in the Appraisal Report.
- The concept of dynamic values works this way:
- Appraisers enter the value for Land Acres in the information section, i.e. 100 acres.
- Everywhere else, when they want to use the land acres value, they can use the ‘data tag’, and the value populates automatically.
- Dynamic values can speed up the workflow as appraisers don’t have to enter the same values multiple times. It is easier to make updates, and avoids room for human errors.
“Nothing can replace the time spent with the data. ”
“Nothing can replace the time spent with the data. ”
Bhakti Dudhara Director of User Experience Design, Aubergine Solutions
Generating a simple appraisal report that has it all
Generating a simple appraisal report that has it all
- Auto-populating data in reports to make them error-free
- Professional and simple layouts to appeal to clients
- Template designs to choose from, for speed and uniformity
The outcome of this entire process is an appraisal report. Its goal is to indicate the value of the subject property backed with reasoning and explanation. It is a legal document, and hence accuracy and representation have to be profound.
Auto-populating data in reports
The report uses data tags that were dynamically created in the previous steps to automatically populate the report. This saves the appraiser’s time. Since the report is auto-generated, spaces for human errors are practically removed.
Templatizing for uniformity
The reports are customisable, in terms of templates and designs to suit the style and layout preferences of individual appraisers.
Professional appraisal report
The reports are built to appeal to the ‘not so casual’ crowd. They are simplistic and have professional layout designs and are generated in formats that’s immediately deliverable to clients.
An app that helps stay updated, on-field
An app that helps stay updated, on-field
- Simple and navigable mobile flow
- Created to meet appraiser’s needs on field
- Real-time syncing with the main platform
To complete the whole experience of collection, analysis and creating insights around land data, we also built a simple and easily navigable app for TerraceAG. The app enables accessibility, no matter where the appraiser is. It helps take field notes and sync work-files & databases with the core system, when the appraiser is out visiting farmlands. Notes can be taken in the form of scribbles, audio or video, depending on the purpose of recording. We also integrated add-ons like map markings to make data collection and entry an easy process.
Disrupting an industry from excel to automatic
Impact is created in its pure sense because of the time saved by professionals when it comes to collating data across multiple farmlands and preparing the appraisal report in no time.
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