Summary
What was delivered and how.
I worked end-to-end as the sole designer on this B2B SaaS project, UX activities included comp analysis, user research, user testing, iterative prototyping and final polished design. Design System: MUI / Material. Designed solutions for the mobile app, and desktop app.
Test out the clickable prototype (desktop only)
I then worked closely with Dev on both the mobile and desktop apps to ensure design integrity and quality were maintained.
Key Deliverables
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Signed 2 large contracts within 2 months of launching
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Secured further funding from Balfour Beatty to extend the feature to use with MIMIC boards (complex electrical systems)
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Users report 2-4 hours time saved since moving to digital plans
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Discipline leads report a significantly reduced downtime from clashes
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Huge safety risks minimised due to identifying clashes early on
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Engineers working with digital Mimics saving at appx. 2 hours per week walking to and from the site office to the point of work
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Results
"I think 30-40% in time savings would be a conservative estimate, especially when compared to our previous manual clash detection processes".
Alan Williams | Electrical Engineer
What is a 'Clash'?
In design terms a clash occurs when components that make up a built asset are not co-ordinated and conflicts occur, some fatal. The industry still relies heavily on pen and papers processes, spotting potential clashes is difficult.
Providing teams with the ability to spot these clashes at an early stage in their projects, makes it much easier, cheaper, safer and less time consuming to rectify. According to the National Safety Council, workplace injuries cost £56,000 per incident on average.
Persona 1
The Creator
As the Site Manager, I need to be able to upload my plan (technical floor plan) to the desktop app. Each room/area requiring a permit needs to be created (or drawn), so that my staff can raise permits, and check out any clashes in the vicinity.
Persona 2
The Reviewer
When I'm raising a permit, I want to open any plan and select zones were the work is taking place. Either on mobile/tablet at the point of work, or in the office prior to work happening, to make sure its safe to proceed with my planned tasks.
Persona 3
The Viewer
I just want to view a projects' plans, and their subsequent zones as well as an overview of all the permits taking place within each level/plan. I may be planning something high risk nearby, so I need to see if my work might clash with someone elses.
Results
"The Plans feature was seamlessly integrated into our teams and ways of working, thanks to its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Both our teams and planning partners appreciate the huge reduction in time savings that's usually spent on using paper processes"
John Roberts | Project Director
Solution
Focussing on process
Collaboration and brainstorming
We had to find a way that allowed users to upload a technical drawing PDF, then easily create different zones (usually for room spaces). These zones could then be used to raise work permits and checklists in them.
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Anyone on the project needs to see all dangerous work taking place, in the zone they intend to work in as well as in the surrounding vicinities.
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We began collaborating as a team which accelerated progress on the project. Gathering technical, risk, design criteria, as well as speaking with existing customers.​ This was a complex project that requires users to jump straight in easily, and begin using it without any additional training.
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Team: Me (design/research), 1PM, 2 F/E Devs and 2 B/E Devs
Time: 2 Months start to launch
There were more than twice as many work-related deaths in construction than in any other industry in the last financial year. 45 building workers died on the job in 2022/23
Construction News June 2023
Userflow
Based on users uploading a technical drawing for a a specific area within a building. User then drops a Pin into the room/area that they need to work in.
Ideation
I didn’t have to make strongly opinionated design decisions too soon and moved through a variety of prototypes quickly to build up design finesse with each iteration, thus avoiding timely work associated with creating well-finessed UI design too soon.
Lean
The early prototypes served several purposes: one to validate with experts in the field, two to support the developers and understand the constraints, and three to act as a fall-back to demo to potential investors.
Moving from Pins to Zones
In order for the platform to be able to identify which room the work is taking place, zones/areas would need to be created by Project Managers first. Then, users can raise permits in a selected zone which would be recorded in the platform.
Results
"The Plans feature was seamlessly integrated into our teams and ways of working, thanks to its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Both our teams and planning partners appreciate the huge reduction in time savings that's usually spent on using paper processes".
John Roberts | Project Director
Final journey
The journey of 'Plans View' was designed from the ground up, with some exciting new ways to enhance the safety of worksite operations for buildings projects. I've particularly enjoyed working closely with users on muiltiple projects at SiteAssist. We are shaking up the construction industry as we know it!
Clash Detector Dashboard
Users can see an overview of each level and the work that is taking place in each. The Manager can check for clashes, which are scored by low, medium and high risk - then either approve the work or postpone it until its safe to pick back up.
Results
"Our discipline leads report saving 2-4 hours per week by no longer needing to locate plan PDFs, mark them up, and follow up on revisions via email. Similarly, our central design delivery office saves 2-4 hours per discipline each week by avoiding downtime caused by clashes"
Alan Jones | Site Co-ordinator
KPIs
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Signed 2 large contracts within 2 months of launching (including Balfour Beatty)
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Clash incidences reduced by 40% drop for the teams up and running using this feature.
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Secured further funding from Balfour Beatty to extend the feature to use with MIMIC boards (complex electrical systems)
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Users report 2-4 hours time saved since moving from paper technical drawings, to digital plans
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Discipline leads report a significantly reduced downtime from clashes, now that they have visibility of all permits within local vicinities
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Huge safety risks now minimised due to identifying clashes early
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Engineers working with digital Mimics save appx. 2 hours per week walking to and from the site office to the point of work