Produce Path

Planted: 2023

Read more about the software development of this project.

To become the new maintainers of Produce Path, SKYCATCHFIRE was rewriting a legacy ASP.NET/Angular web application to Next.js and the mobile application to React Native.

FM Tracks Daily Data

To help market managers enter daily data, I designed and built a new interface that surfaces important data points and allows managers to visually get a sense of the market data available in a given month.

To build this, a blend data is needed from

• market hours,
• market limited hours,
• market transactions,
• market reimbursements, and
• market post-market reports.

As this project was a port of an existing application, I poured over the legacy code to determine how things worked. I then designed new HTTP API interfaces to support the new interface and implemented them in the Next.js API routes.

To keep people moving fast, I used React Query to keep any given months data around locally for five minutes.

At this time, I finally decided to pick up Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte. I used the book to help me design the Daily Data interface and it specifically influenced the inclusion of sparklines for transactions and reimbursements.

FM Engage Proximity Map

To help market consumers see market locations, I built a market proximity map.

Market consumers can specify a location to search or use their current location.

The map is built with Google Maps and the Google Maps JavaScript API.

Penelope, the Produce Path Tomato

To help onboard people to the platform, I introduced Penelope, the Produce Path Tomato.

Penelope shows up whenever I think people might benefit from more information.

These include

• On the Engage Inventory page, to note that the inventory is an estimate.
• On the Engage Vendors page, to note that the vendors are an estimate.
• On the Tracks Banner, to welcome people to the new interface.
• On the Tracks Daily Data page, to answer “What do the colors mean?” and “Why isn’t my data showing up?” and explains them kindly.

More fun

When a market manager updates a vendors inventory, a toast message appears with a message like

• Way to grow!
• Farmtastic!
• Market magic unlocked!
• Delicious!
• Harvest happiness!
• Crop-tastic!
• Fresh and fabulous!
• Flavor fiesta!