SAMS - User Needs

Following UCD according to the DIN ISO 9241-210, all SAMS hardware, software and Api-management project solutions and results are characterized by iterations to meet the user needs and requirements.
All observations and findings describing the user needs and their contexts were collected and documented in a clear structured table. Therefore, the UX Nugget airtable was used, as it is user friendly and offers a collaborative work frame in an effective way to add metadata that can be sorted and filtered according to the researchers needs. Moreover, the UX nuggets can be documented in a way that avoids redundancies, helps to prioritize and enables the researchers to find research gaps and resolve contradictions.

UX Nugget airtable and detail view of insights for one observation.

One major goal of UCD and its user research is to collect valid information about users and their context of use in order to identify user needs. A user need is a prerequisite identified as necessary for a user, or a user group, to achieve a goal, implied or stated within a specific context of use.

Identification and Elaboration of Beekeeper Needs
The user research overview (Table below) summarizes all research phases and the methodologies used in Ethiopia and Indonesia within the SAMS project.

-	Ethiopia	Indonesia
User Research Phase I: Context of Use Analysis	• Interviews and in-depths interviews with beekeepers • Focus Group Discussions with beekeeping experts and beekeeping business stakeholders	• In depth Interviews and contextual inquiry with beekeepers • Focus Group Discussions with beekeepers, researchers, cooperatives, and bee-related experts
User Research Phase II: Context of Use Analysis	• Different beekeepers involved, long-term contextual inquiries with some of the beekeepers	• In depth interviews and contextual inquiries with beekeepers
User Research Phase III: Prototype Evaluation and Context of Use Analysis (iteration)	• DSS usability tests with beekeepers	• In depth interview, learning from extremes methods (recorded video call) with beekeepers: (honey/colony productivity lens) 1 unproductive, 1 productive, (bee colonies quantity lens) 1 grassroot/ community beekeeper, 1 industrial beekeeper * DSS usability testing with recorded video call utilized lookback applications with beekeepers (grassroot beekeepers, establish beekeepers, community beekeeper)

User Research Phase I incl. the first UCD workshop was conducted in 2018. The context of use analysis continued in Research Phase II with evaluations in the second UCD Prototyping Workshop in Bandung/ Indonesia in July 2019; the beekeeper needs, documented in the UX Nugget airtable, were assessed per country by the SAMS team in terms of (a) importance (see Table 3), (b) ability to be solved by the SAMS HIVE monitoring system, (c) ability to be solved by DSS SAMS data display for beekeepers, (d) ability to be solved by a solution on flowering information, (3) ability to be solved by another application on Beekeeping advise and capacity building (see Table 4). User Research Phase III with prototype evaluation started after the second UCD workshop.

Table: Beekeeper needs in detail and assessed in terms of importance. Scale: 1= not important at all; 2= not important; 3= moderate important; 4= important; 5= very important.

Nr.	Beekeeper Needs	Importance (how one “user need” is strongly felt by the users)
_	_	Ethiopia	Indonesia	EU
1	As a beekeeper, I want to be informed by the season of the flower, so that I can make sure when the bees have enough food	3	3	3
2	As a beekeeper I want to know whether the location is convenient for the bees or not, so that i can decide if I place my colony in that place, the colony will not abscond	5	3	3
3	As a beekeeper, I want the forage for the bees are secured (the diversity of the forage guaranteed by policy, for example) so that I can do beekeeping without worry my colony will abscond.	5	5	4
4	As a beekeeper, I want my colony free from pests’ attack (wasps, ants, rats etc), so that my colony can grow healthily and productively without interference.	5	5	5
5	As a beekeeper, if there is some new method in beekeeping, I want to adopt it if it proven can have direct benefits for me, with a minimum cost, and I can get the tools locally	4	2	4
6	As a beekeeper, I want my colony to be safe from thief, so that I can be freed from anxiety about the existence my colony	5	5	4
7	As a beekeeper, I want my colony to be safe from the impact of extreme climate/weather, so that I still can get income from beekeeping activity	4	4	4
8	As a beekeeper, I want to have access to the beneficial beekeeping community/association so that I can gain positive benefits that can improve my entire beekeeping activity	5	2	3
9	As a beekeeper, I want a policy that support beekeeping activity, so that I know that the food resources for bees are secured	5	5	5
10	As a beekeeper I want to get some support and coaching so that I can have some direction and mentoring in beekeeping activity	4	3	4
11	As a beekeeper I want to get some access to the money capital so that I can start, leverage, or scale up my beekeeping activity	4	3	5
12	As a beekeeper, I want my customers to be honey-literate so that I could easily selling my honey to customers	3	1	5
13	As a beekeeper, I want to have new technology or methods that can boost the productivity of my honey apiary so that my income increases	5	5	3
14	As a beekeeper, I want my colony to be freed from any disease, so that my colony can work productively without any obstacle	5	2	5
15	As a beekeeper I want to know if anything affects bees’ behaviour so that I can take an appropriate action for my colonies	5	1	4
16	As a beekeeper, I want to know how much honey that allowed to be harvested in a colony, so that I can harvest the honey in the right amount without suffering the colony	3	1	3
17	As a beekeeper, I want to know if my colony is safe enough to be checked or not, so that I can prevent their stress level to be higher than allowed.	4	1	3
18	As a beekeeper, I want to notify if temperature condition of the colony is too hot, so that I can move it to a place with proper temperature.	5	1	3
19	As a beekeeper I want to have an assistant in my activity so that I can get some help to do some work.	5	3	3
20	As a beekeeper, I want to have a beekeeping comrades/associates that come in handy whenever I need help, so that I could carry on honey harvesting and bee hunting or another kind of works that is labour intensive	4	3	3
21	As a beekeeper, I want my box free of termite, so that I don't have to worry about the condition of the box when season changes	5	2	2
22	As a beekeeper, I want to be notified if my frames are too close to each other, so that I can prevent the frames sticks to each other and become an obstacle for my beekeeping activities	1	1	3
23	As a beekeeper, I want my hives box to be sturdy enough, so that I don’t have to worry if it is going to fall or not	1	1	4
24	As a beekeeper, I want the entrance of the hive box always clear of the plants, leaves and spider-web, so that my colony can go looking for the food freely without obstacle	4	1	3
25	As a beekeeper, I want to have an opportunity to a vast network of people, not only in beekeeping but also on other fields, so that I could increase another potential of business and explore another beekeeping methods	4	1	3
26	As a beekeeper, I want to have a practical knowledge about the biology and physiology of bees so that I am able to provide the best treatment for my colony	4	1	4
27	Beekeepers want to know if there is a pesticide chemical affecting the bee colony	5	4	5
28	Beekeepers want to know if there is an upcoming swarm in the colony	5	1	5
29	Beekeepers want to know the strength of the bee colony. This will help them to identify the colonies they have to follow up closely	5	1	5

Reviewing all beekeeper needs in relation to its importance it becomes clear that the most prioritized need of the beekeeper is to ensure that none of the bee colonies is absconding, despite the uncertainty of the seasons, forage, and pests’ threat.