Owned portfolio project. Brian has an interest in Homegrown. This is an AI-assisted expert assessment prepared for the Usability.ie portfolio, not an independent client commission or a study with recruited participants.
The service question
Homegrown connects people seeking growing space with people offering land. A grower needs to understand whether a request secures a plot or registers interest. A host needs to judge local demand, what information becomes public and what happens before an introduction. The review examined how the public interface supports those decisions.
Scope and evidence
Reviewed on 5 September 2026: the homepage, Find a Plot, Open Your Space, the host listing form and the Galway county page. Checks covered desktop and mobile presentation, public copy, navigation, form labels and required fields, sampled landmarks and keyboard behaviour. No form was submitted and no private enquiry, matching or payment records were accessed. Displayed demand numbers are website claims, not independently reconciled operational results.
What already helps
The homepage offers separate routes for people seeking space, starting to grow and offering land. It explains that registering is optional for reading guidance. The matching explanation says both sides decide whether to meet, and the grower form asks for a town or rough area rather than an exact address. Required fields have visible labels; the grower form separates optional marketing from permission to assess a match.
These are observed interface features. Their presence does not prove that every visitor understands the process or that the operational promises are fulfilled. They provide useful strengths to preserve when making corrections.
01 / Give demand figures one definition
Observed: the host landing page showed “60 people looking for growing space” and, nearby, a statement about 78 grower requests. The homepage also displayed 78 requests. The page did not explain the relationship between 60 people and 78 requests at those points.
Likely consequence: a prospective host has to guess whether the numbers represent different dates, unique people or a stale value. Confidence is high in the displayed mismatch, but the operational explanation is unverified. Priority: medium.
Proposed change: use a shared, dated source for the displayed measure and explain its definition. If requests and people are intentionally different measures, label both. Do not simply change one number to match another without reconciling the underlying records.
Verification: compare the rendered figures across the homepage and host route against an approved, dated aggregate. Record the definition and refresh date. This verification has not been completed as part of the public review.
02 / Keep county information consistent
Observed: the homepage presented Galway with a two-to-three-year waiting-time label, while Find a Plot presented Galway with a two-to-four-year label. The review establishes that the summaries differed; it does not establish the correct current waiting time.
Likely consequence: a grower comparing routes may receive a different expectation depending on where they start. Priority: medium; confidence in the interface inconsistency is high.
Proposed change: give repeated county summaries a common source, evidence date and appropriate qualification. Where a reliable current estimate is unavailable, state that the visitor should check the council route instead of presenting a precise unsupported wait.
Verification: check every Galway summary against the chosen source and show when it was reviewed. A content correction should not imply new land availability.
03 / Provide a consistent route to main content
Observed: the homepage, Find a Plot and Galway page had no HTML main landmark in the sampled browser DOM; Open Your Space had one. This is a structural inconsistency, rather than proof of a complete accessibility failure.
Likely consequence: people navigating by landmarks may have less predictable access to the principal content. Priority: medium; confidence in the DOM observation is high. The review does not represent a completed screen-reader study.
Proposed change: use one main landmark and a working skip link on each page, with a visible focus state and an appropriate target. Preserve the existing content order.
Verification: repeat the structural check and keyboard navigation on each sampled template, then include the agreed assistive-technology checks in a wider evaluation.
04 / Show a meaningful review date
Observed: the Galway demand panel rendered “Updated undefined.” Likely consequence: the visitor cannot tell when the information was refreshed. Priority: low; confidence in the rendered text is high.
Proposed change: render a valid date from the approved source, or a useful “Review date unavailable” message when no date exists. Verification: check both a valid-date fixture and a missing-date fixture. Do not invent a freshness date.
Forms and mobile checks
The four initially sampled pages had no horizontal page overflow at 390px. Visible grower fields had associated labels, required status was present in the markup and the form warned against entering a street address or Eircode. These checks cover the public form presentation. They do not establish server validation, successful delivery, consent processing or matching outcomes. The host listing route and 320px checks are recorded in the supporting assessment evidence.
Delivery status
Completed: public-page inspection, dated screenshots, sampled structural checks and the prioritised recommendations above. Proposed: reconcile the repeated figures and county labels; standardise main-content access. Implemented: no Homegrown source changes in this sprint. Retested: no remediation outcomes are claimed.
What to investigate with people next
A later study could ask growers to explain what submitting a request means and hosts to explain when contact details are shared. Include relevant access needs and differing levels of digital confidence. Observe whether the interface distinguishes interest, suitability, introduction and an agreed arrangement. This is a proposed study, not evidence that those participants have been recruited.