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IoT for Agriculture: Remote Beehive Monitoring

Foudational Research for a Student Start-up

Project Summary

HiveTec is an early-stage start-up focusing on using technology as a solution to agricultural problems. HiveTec is developing an IoT-based remote monitoring tool for beehives to combat high honeybee colony loss.

As the primary UX researcher, I conducted a two-month foundational research project to understand U.S. beekeepers’ working processes, challenges, and needs with regards to monitoring beehives and keep bees healthy. As a result, I defined product features for the first-generation MVP by leveraging insights from in-depth interviews and an online survey with hobbyist beekeepers across the U.S.

Methods

Foundational Research / Semi-structured Interviews / Survey

My Role

Primary UX Researcher: research planning, execution, and guiding the definition of the first-generation MVP

Time Frame

Dec 2020 - Jan 2021 (Two Months)

Stakeholders

CEO, UX/Product team

1. The Problem

Honeybees are more than just honey. They are critical pollinators to one in every three bites of food we eat and contribute annually $30 billion to U.S. crop production alone. However, beekeepers in the U.S. lost an estimated 43.7% of the colonies in 2019 - 2020 (Bee Informed Partnership).

HiveTec is developing an IoT beehive monitoring equipment that allows beekeepers to monitor beehives remotely on an APP, provides live updates of beehives’ health conditions, and assists beekeepers in preventing potential beehive distress and colony loss.

I joined the team in December 2020. The team was in the process of building the first-generation MVP. My primary responsibility was to define specific product requirements and priorities for the MVP. My stakeholders were the CEO and the product UX team.

2. Research Objectives

The Problem

Through a few stakeholder interviews with the CEO and the UX team, I discovered that the major requests are two-fold. On the business side, the CEO wanted to better understand our target users (hobbyist beekeepers) and what motivates a beekeeper to purchase a remote monitoring device. On the product side, the UX team would like to know what features should be on the APP and which ones should be prioritized.

Research Questions

I broke the stakeholder’s needs into specific research questions to guide the research process. I categorized the research questions into three categories.

The Who

  • What are the characteristics of our target users (hobbyist beekeepers)?
  • What differentiates hobbyist beekeepers from commercial beekeepers? What motivates them to become hobbyist beekeepers?

The Process and User Needs

  • How do hobbyist beekeepers typically monitor their beehives?
  • What pieces of information do hobbyist beekeepers monitor and rely on to keep their bee colonies alive and healthy? How do they use those pieces of information?

The Technology

  • What are hobbyist beekeepers’ perspectives on using technology as an aid in beekeeping and why?

3. The Process

Research Foundation

Prior to planning the details, I spent one-week conducting secondary research on beekeeping and completed an online course on Beekeeping 101 provided by PennState Extension. The course prepared me with the fundamental knowledge and I was ready to talk to real beekeepers in their language.

Planning

I selected in-depth interviews and an online survey as my methodologies to answer the research questions above.

I selected in-depth interviews as my primary approach to understanding the hobbyist beekeepers. The reasons for my decisions were:

  • Interviews could provide an in-depth and empathic understanding of the beekeeper’s experiences, perceptions, and most importantly their motivations
  • The study had to be remote due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, field studies were not available. Remote interviews were as effective as in-person interviews
  • Remote diary studies or remote observational studies weren’t realistic given the season (beekeepers don’t inspect their beehives in the winter). Interviews would be the best way to learn about beekeepers’ working processes
  • Interviews were easy to recruit for and administer given a limited budget and a short time frame.

I chose an online survey as my secondary method to collect quantifiable data on the demographic information of hobbyist beekeepers and attributes of their apiary (the place beehives are kept).

Recruitment Strategy

Study interviewees were recruited by directly contacting local bee clubs across the U.S. To ensure the sample was representative and comprehensive, I selected 5 states, covering all 5 agricultural beekeeping zones across the U.S. States that have a large number of honeybee colonies and hobbyist beekeepers populations were selected.

The online survey was distributed through local bee clubs after relationships with bee club members were established.

Results & Analysis

**some details were omitted due to NDA agreements

Prioritization Matrix

Prioritization Matrix

Interviews

I interviewed 27 beekeepers through Zoom in 2 weeks. After data was collected, I aggregated all the data points onto a Miro board. I sorted and clustered similar data using affinity diagrams and identified themes of user needs. I used a prioritization matrix with two axes (value to user and effort by organization) to help prioritize user needs for the MVP.

Survey

I received 115 valid responses in 1 week. I used Excel to clean the survey data. used R as the primary analysis tool for the survey.

Key Insights

**some details were omitted due to NDA agreements

I would like to highlight several interesting insights that I found:

  • The Who

    • Hobbyist beekeepers don’t keep bees for monetary reasons. They keep bees for fun.
    • Most of them are fascinated by bees as a species. They raise bees to be closer to nature, contribute to the diversity, and always want to learn more about bees
    • Hobbyist beekeepers tend to be older in age. Over one-third of our survey respondents were over 65 years-old. Over 90% were over 40 years-old.

  • The Process & User Needs

    • The actual beehive monitoring processes that hobbyists conduct are not necessarily the best processes in theory (that are taught in class)
    • There are several critical pieces of information that experienced beekeepers rely on to monitor the well-being of the bees. However, newbee beekeepers might have a hard time mastering and remembering those pieces of information
    • (insights on user needs are omitted for NDA reasons)

  • Perspectives on Tech

    • Hobbyist beekeepers are interested in purchasing technology as long as the technology provides trustworthy data
    • Experienced beekeepers see remote monitoring technologies as secondary tools to help them learn more about bees. New beekeepers would like to use remote monitoring technologies as guidance.

4. Impact

**some details were omitted due to NDA agreements

I delivered my research findings through presentations in team meetings. Here was the major impact of my research:

  • My research defined product requirements for the first-generation MVP including hardware functionalities, APP features, and use cases
  • I reduced hardware production cost by identifying and prioritizing user needs and eliminating inefficient hardware features
  • I preemptively reduced future user error and improved APP usability by highlighting accessibility as prioritization in product software design considering the age group of our target users
  • I raised awareness of usability within the organization through collaborating directly with the CEO and including the CEO as an observer in the user interviews