Click on the link below to view the webinar by Juan Manuel Londoño and Anna Müller, both from the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, on 24 July 2025 entitled Field testing of the redesigned Farmer Feedback Sheet & Diploma for feedback after Tricot trials.
Presenter Bio: Juan Manuel Londoño is a UX designer dedicated to transforming research findings into practical digital and analog tools for smallholder farmers. He has been involved in product design and field-testing activities in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras. Anna Müller heads the Human-Centered and Inclusive Design team at the Alliance. With a PhD in Agricultural Economics and field experience in Central America and East Africa, she guides projects that apply user-research methods to digital extension, breeding, and on-farm testing services.
For more info, contact Juan Manuel at: (j.londono@cgiar.org) or Anna at (a.muller@cgiar.org)
Summary of presentation: Juan Manuel reported on a rapid field test of a redesigned Farmer Feedback Sheet he and his team carried out with cassava farmers and Tricot implementers in south-west Nigeria. Using several HCD methodologies, they gauged the sheet’s usability and its value as a “communication token” between farmers and staff. They translated these findings into concrete design tweaks and facilitation insights that can help 1000FARMS partners run more engaging, data-driven feedback sessions at scale.
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| How do we get good icons, and how can we really make sure that that is cross cultural? | Juan Manual: The team has found that creating effective icons is challenging, but figurative icons work better than abstract ones, especially when paired with one- or two-word labels for clarity. They tested icons alone and then with labels, discovering that labels were essential, as about 70% of farmers better understood the icons when words were included. Potential solutions include using photos, adding agronomic detail, sourcing icons from databases, or generating them with AI, though these approaches will take more time and creativity to refine. My experience is like icons by themselves, like it’s it’s very cultural, and it’s very difficult to find like something that works in all the context. So the key is to pair it with the right wording. Anna Muller: I see creating figurative icons as a big challenge, but I was thinking they could follow the same graphic style as our feedback sheets, using simplified or abstracted botanical drawings. Another idea we discussed was making the icon creation a community effort, maybe through a contest or regional contributions. For instance, in Nigeria, creative talent is everywhere—even in small towns—so we could really take advantage of local designers and artists to develop culturally relevant and effective icons. we could have a library of pre tested icons in clean mob and give context where they worked, and instructions on testing. |
| What kind of training do you plan for the institutes who are involved in the co-design of the farmer feedback sheets? | So far, we found that the in person training was way better that the online trainings. However, we developed a series of materials that will facilitate the worship, like a time management sheet, an agenda management as some summarizes of the workshop, clear role, clear task functions. So we create, like a package for the implementers. We hope that this will facilitate the virtual training in the future. However, in person training is always preferred. |
| Comment: I think it would be valuable to systematically test sets of icons for comprehension across different tricot teams and countries, since this could provide comparative results and deeper insights. | yes, one of the main challenges with designing icons is that crops like cassava don’t follow simple visual cues—such as bigger leaves meaning better yields—making it hard to represent concepts accurately. The real difficulty lies in translating graphic information into something farmers can easily understand, especially given their diverse contexts, literacy levels, and familiarity with technology. While some are accustomed to digital iconography from platforms like Facebook or Android, others only use basic phones, so creating universally meaningful icons remains a complex but fascinating design problem. |
| One interesting finding is that farmers’ perception of tricot often depends on trial outcomes—successful, high-yielding trials create positive feelings, while poor yields lead to negative experiences. This raises the question to the audience today - Have others observed the same pattern and how expectations might be better managed? | Berta Ortiz: Getting critical feedback from farmers can be difficult, as in some cultures—like in East Africa—it’s considered disrespectful to say no, so farmers often remain polite and grateful. At the same time, harvests create a strong sense of pride, with farmers viewing good yields as their personal success, which reinforces the link between results and overall experience. This highlights the challenge of managing expectations and helping farmers understand tricot as an experimental process, not just about outcomes. Almendra Cremaschi: In the tricot implementation in Nigeria, farmers did not express negative attitudes, partly because they worked in groups of about 10 within each community. Even if some trials underperformed, farmers could still access better-performing varieties from their peers, which reduced frustration and created solutions within the group. This also highlights the importance of breeders selecting their best genotypes for testing to ensure positive experiences and minimize potential disappointment. Gospel Edughaen: In some cases, all three tested varieties performed worse than the farmers’ local varieties, but often at least one or two did well, which kept farmers encouraged. When yields were poor across the board, farmers sometimes attributed it to their soil, especially if neighboring trials also struggled. This mix of outcomes, along with the presence of local varieties for comparison, helped maintain farmers’ confidence in the tricot experience. |