March 5, 2025

Designing Farm Insight Dashboards for Urban Agriculture

Translating crop, soil, and volunteer data into dashboards that keep community-led farms resilient and funded.

Data VisualizationCivic TechProduct

Start With Personas

  • Farm managers need irrigation alerts.
  • Volunteers want shift feedback.
  • Funders look for impact narratives.

Dashboard Priorities

  1. Soil + weather alignment — overlay moisture sensors with NOAA data.
  2. Volunteer velocity — weekly active volunteers vs. staffing target.
  3. Harvest storytelling — rolling sum of produce donated, wrapped in short copy blocks.

Accessibility Wins

  • Large, high-contrast typography for outdoor tablets.
  • Keyboard-friendly filters for office analysts.
  • ALT text describing insight cards for screen readers.

Outcome

Farms now send a single shareable link during board reviews—no more CSV exports at midnight.