Interactive tools supporting agriculture in the wine industry

Abstract

To design from a human perspective rather than from existing technological opportunities, and involving multiple stakeholders with their different perspectives, is an important aspect of participatory design and user-centered design. This thesis project was an explorative study done on a wine estate, in the Western Cape, South Africa, to find novel ICT solutions, for supporting co-operation and planning between multiple and individual work tasks in the work practice. This research explored potentials to manage multiple stakeholders and use their different perspectives to inform design research. The thesis project shows the ethnographic research gathered through video shadowing, workshop results involving the users to contribute to the development of the design by acting with a projection, leading up to a design opening and further focused on the concept development with the stakeholders.The thesis proposes a simulated concept namely the Visual Calculator (VC). This system is designed to involve several participators within a work practice. It supports calculation activities for spraying and buying chemicals. It saves the user time by incorporating standard calculations to output needed information faster. It supports planning, management and record keeping aspects of the farm manager’s work practice in the vineyard spraying process. Although the concept was more fully developed for the farm manager, the VC involves two other work roles including the owner and foreman. The concept focuses on a human centered perspective, instead of making the system fully automated, giving users control and not controlling the users. For this to be successful work should be divided and have equal responsibilities, each stakeholder can contribute and value their part of the work, knowing where it fits in, why it is important and how it influences other aspects of the work practice. The research outcome involves, envisioning the future potentials of the design (VC), design for participation, a way to identify design openings, problem solving and conceptualizing by utilizing user’s strengths.