Designing Clarity in Complexity: Meet Elina Kapanen

For Elina Kapanen, design is not about decoration or aesthetics. It’s about understanding problems deeply and creating solutions that truly help people.

As a Senior Product Designer at eAgronom, she works at the intersection of agriculture, sustainability, and technology, helping turn complex systems into clear, meaningful experiences for farmers. With more than 16 years of experience across climate-tech, healthcare, and digital platforms, Elina combines curiosity, empathy, and analytical thinking to design products that create real impact.

Outside of work, she explores ideas through writing, illustration, music, and reading. She is always searching for connections between seemingly unrelated topics.

We spoke with Elina about designing for complexity, learning from users, and why good design starts with asking the right questions.

Let’s start from the beginning. What led you to eAgronom, and what made you feel this was the right next step in your design journey?

I heard through a friend that eAgronom was hiring, and at the time, I was looking for a company whose mission aligned with mine. Sustainability matters to me, and working with farmers was an interesting new challenge I was curious to explore.

I felt that my background in complex systems and consumer products would bring value to eAgronom, as the product sits at the intersection of both.

What made sustainability and agriculture an exciting challenge for you?

As a designer, you inevitably become a specialist in the domain you work in. I’m a very curious person, and I love learning about areas I previously knew nothing about - so agronomy felt like something I’d genuinely enjoy diving into. It’s also a domain that affects all of us, even though we rarely think about it on a daily basis.

Another aspect that attracted me was the opportunity to talk directly with farmers and understand how they think and work.

I’ve always wanted to invest my time in work that creates real value for people and ideally for the environment as well.

As a Senior Product Designer at eAgronom, what problems are you primarily focused on solving?

Each project comes with its own unique problem space, and I’m constantly learning new behaviors and needs from farmers. However, some themes come up frequently:

• How to communicate the process and progress clearly, and help farmers understand what is expected of them next?

• How to make entering agricultural data convenient, quick, and motivating to do? How to make it feel calm and effortless rather than demanding?

• How to name items, create flows, and structure information in a way that aligns with the farmer’s mindset? 

• How can design help ensure high data quality and reduce the chance of errors?

• How to visualize large amounts of data in a way that’s clear, actionable, and actually helps farmers make decisions?

• How to build trust in the system and reduce the anxiety that can come with handling sensitive or important data?

• How to balance technical architecture with a simple interface - supporting the complexity behind the scenes while keeping the experience aligned with how farmers think?

And then there’s the technical side: I need to understand how the system is built and which solutions are realistic within our project constraints, or how they could be simplified. At the same time, I consider how interface elements and behaviors align with our design system, principles, and overall look and feel. That means deciding when to use existing components, introduce new ones, or improve them – and how those decisions affect the rest of the system. This is where designers, product managers, and developers come together for discussions.

eAgronom operates in a complex space: agriculture, sustainability, and carbon credits. How do you design clarity within such complexity?

It’s definitely not easy, but it’s very rewarding. Design methodologies help set a structure. It’s about choosing the right approach for the context, scope, and stage of a project. 

It’s also important to plan who and when to involve, and consider time for feedback loops and refinement. The design work itself can be quite fast, but aligning with different people takes time, as everyone has their own agenda. As a sole designer, you also have to be mindful of your time and capacity.

I’m lucky to work with a very supportive and knowledgeable team to reflect ideas with. Farmers are often willing to test and discuss our solutions, which is incredibly valuable. We can also reach out to our agronomy, carbon, and account management teams to better understand the farming context, which is critical for making good design decisions. Through collaboration with these teams, as well as (equally importantly) with product managers and developers, we continuously refine solutions until we gain enough confidence that we’re building the right thing or at least getting close to it.

“Designing” your own day is just as crucial to maintain focus and avoid decision or information overload. It’s important to know when to let go and when to keep pushing. Not everything is under your control, and it’s impossible to follow the process perfectly every time.

When users ask for specific features, how do you uncover what they actually need?

People are used to “illustrating” their problem by describing a solution they’ve seen in another product, and that’s completely normal. However, as a designer, you think in the language of problems, needs, and opportunities. Without understanding those, you don’t really know what you’re solving. That’s why you have to go a few levels deeper and dig into what’s behind the request.

Also, very often, there isn’t just one possible solution - there are many, and sometimes better ones than were originally suggested. That’s why it’s important not to limit ourselves too early.

What I usually do is ask users to describe what they’re trying to accomplish in that moment. I often ask them to walk me through how they currently handle the task and what workarounds they’ve developed. That process usually reveals the real need behind the feature request, and can inform a design solution. It happens often that the most meaningful solution comes from the user’s mouth, very casually, when they explain their process. And it is not the same as where we started.

In general, user experience design is less about “knowing” and more about “learning”.

Designers have the tools and techniques to learn.

You’ve built design principles and systems in several companies. What does a strong design system enable in an organization like ours?

Having a design system helps the experience feel consistent for users and allows the product team to move faster. It’s a necessity, especially in a high-complexity platform like ours. Design principles help remind us what matters most for the product and our users, and they are valuable during decision-making moments.

With the rise of AI tools, having a solid design system is becoming even more important. It allows teams to prototype quickly using their own components and patterns, which makes testing ideas much faster. As AI tools evolve, we’re already seeing product processes shift - more of the value creation happens earlier in the project when ideas can be explored and validated much quicker.

In your experience, what’s the biggest misconception companies have about design?

One that I often notice is that companies recognize the importance of design, but don’t always connect it clearly to business outcomes. In reality, design directly impacts business goals. That’s why collaboration between designers, product managers, and business stakeholders is essential. Designers need to understand what the company is trying to achieve so they can support it with relevant solutions and measurable design metrics. These metrics make progress more visible and help teams see more quickly whether they’re moving toward the larger business goals. It also makes the design impact visible.

I also think many companies still underestimate how powerful design research can be as a source of innovation and expansion. It helps uncover user needs that are often hidden, which can turn into new business opportunities and areas for growth. Many companies rely mainly on asking users what they want. But those answers are often influenced by emotions and imperfect memories. Our remembered experiences are fragmented and sometimes inaccurate. Design research also looks at what people actually “do” in real situations (not just what they “say” or “feel”), which reveals insights you wouldn’t discover otherwise. Reaching that level of understanding creates a win-win for both users and the company.

I like to think of designers as empathetic “small scientists” (a lot of it is borrowed from them!) - we form hypotheses, test assumptions, and uncover insights. At our best, we’re professional learners and passionate makers who use our tools not just to polish products, but to help companies evolve, if given the opportunity.

What does “good design” mean to you in the context of sustainability and climate-tech?

In general, “good design” varies in each product. Some products prioritize usability and efficiency, while others focus more on engagement. But a common principle is that good design brings value to someone at the right moment with the least amount of effort - ideally even making the experience enjoyable.

In sustainability and climate-tech, good design also needs to emphasize robustness, clarity, and long-term thinking. Good design can only exist when the right people from different domains are brought together, and the conversation between them is facilitated well.

You’ve worked across very different industries. What has stayed constant in your approach over the years?

The biggest constant is that user experience is always a team effort - it’s never an individual practice. Good solutions come from people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, which also means designing a bit more “in the open.”

Another constant is the importance of deeply understanding users and their mindset, what matters in the domain and for the company, what happens in users’ real-life context, and what users truly care about. That’s the foundation of everything.

And finally, good solutions rarely come from rushing to answers - they come from understanding the problem well.

Living in Italy while working remotely in a global team. Does your environment influence your creativity or perspective?

Daily life is not drastically different from when I lived in Estonia, but I’ve noticed cultural differences. Italians tend to take their time and linger in places, have more small talk, and generally take their time, while Estonians are generally more practical and direct.

Adjusting to that rhythm has been unfamiliar but helpful. It encourages you to slow down and be more present outside of working, which is good for the mind and body.

Living in northern Italy also means having both mountains and the sea nearby. Small daytrips and changing scenery help clear my mind and create space for new ideas. Moments of awe - like looking at something much bigger than ourselves, such as mountains - also help put things into perspective. We often get caught up in details, but experiences like that remind me to zoom out, both in life and in work.

Outside of work, you write, illustrate, read, and explore ideas deeply. Do these creative outlets feed back into your professional work?

Yes. I’m fascinated by reading about different topics and then finding connections between them. I’m also interested in understanding how we humans think and why we behave the way we do - both on an individual level and within society.

Reflecting on these thoughts, and being naturally observant of small everyday interactions and moments around me, I like to express myself or “order my thoughts” in different ways - whether through writing or other creative formats. It often depends on my mood, and I don’t limit myself to just one format.

I think this trait and practice help me in my work as well, since I often need to connect different perspectives there too.

After years of experience across startups and industries, what still excites you most about product design?

Each time, the moment after a call or meeting with users, when an insight “clicks” is one I really live for. It’s an “aha” moment where the problem suddenly becomes clearer, and you feel energized to explore further. It still excites me every time - like a kid who can’t quite contain their excitement.

If you could change one thing about how organizations approach product design, what would it be?

It’s hard to choose just one, but in short: include designers in business discussions, give them space to explore and identify new opportunities, and treat research and testing with real users as part of the project scope. It’s also important to support bringing together different areas of expertise, because the simplest and best design solutions come from collaboration.

Complete the sentence: Working at eAgronom is like…

Working at eAgronom is like being in a forest where trees have to support each other underground - many unseen connections strengthening the whole. And vice versa. As Peter Wohlleben put it: “A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”