A Quick Introduction
After I graduated from Industrial Design at Humber, I immediately found myself working in the Interior Design field as an Inside Sales Rep for Knoll Canada. It was a fast paced and hectic first industry job, but I saw and learned so much.
I interacted with a number of Interior Designers, Suppliers, Vendors, and Logistics companies on a daily basis. Due to this, I heard many of the pain points people within this industry face since I was usually speaking to them directly.
This project, carried out by solely myself, is based upon my time within the Architecture / Interior Design Field.
Roles On This Project:
UX Research: Adam Dimla
UX Design: Adam Dimla
UI Design: Adam Dimla
The Problem Space.
The industry of interior design and architecture is a fast paced and exciting field. It has an influence on our daily lives, whether it is obvious or hidden in plain sight. From small homes to large scale corporate buildings and interiors, these spaces are thoroughly thought out in order to give users the best experience possible.
Since these spaces are part of the build environment around us, it often requires the collaboration of different parties, in addition to architecture & interior design firms, to realize them. Construction contractors, external design/architecture consultants, and furniture vendors/manufacturers are few of the different kinds of parties that also partake in this.
As much as one may hope these projects will go to plan and stay on schedule, difficulties like miscommunication and poor collaboration effort can set them back. This can happen both at an internal level among team members and externally with different partners working on the project.
Competitive Analysis
What on the current market would be used in this field for project management?
Asana
A project management platform that keeps track of workloads, tasks, and timelines for teams.
Microsoft Teams
A platform that allows those within a company to chat, video call, send files, and manage tasks all from one app.
Trello
An online task tracker for teams working in a collaborative environment.
What they do right
- Trello and Asana have visually pleasing UI elements and layouts
- Microsoft teams is a well established platform that exists within a robust ecosystem (Microsoft office)
What they do poorly
- Asana's mobile app is visually cluttered
- Microsoft teams operates in a clunky manner, especially on the desktop app
- None of the mentioned solutions are focused around the design space, especially with BIM
Hypothesis
I believe that there is a collaboration problem in the Architecture/Interior Design industry.
I will know I’m right when I see the following insights from the target market:
Mentions of miscommunications during projects, current collaboration tools not being effective enough, and individuals talking about the stress related to poor collaboration efforts.
Primary Research - User Interviews
"Sometimes you have managers, team leads, or principal (designers) that don't manage client expectations properly."
"When I was in a small firm, I found being together and being able to look over my desk and ask my colleague thigs like "hey, what do you think about this?" was the best thing.
"We had an Excel file that everyone could be in at the same time. I found that to be overwhelming, so I just made my own to manage the projects I was working on.
"Half the time, the firms asking us for product didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't have enough knowledge and would be hard to communicate with."
Key Learnings
From speaking to three different individuals working within the Interior Design industry, many good insights were brought up. Speaking with these individuals reminded me of how fun, yet hectic it could be. The act of creating spaces requires so much coordination, organization, and team work. Below were some of the key take-aways from talking to these designers.
- All designers that were interviewed stated that communication breakdown happened both at an internal level and with external partners
- Managing expectations plays a huge role in design projects, both on the designer's end and the client's
- True collaboration between everyone involved is at the heart of any good project
- Most collaboration, in addition to happening in person, also happens virtually as well through cloud services like BIM (Building Information Technology)
Therefore, my hypothesis was proven right. All of the designers responses mentioned that collaboration was difficult with external partners to an extent. Current tools available do not facilitate proper communication and collaboration at times, which can be frustrating.
Secondary Research - Articles, News,Stats, Etc.
Making sure everyone stays on track is harder in a pandemic world.
“Another major challenge (of working remotely) is staff development. Generally, the more junior the staff person is, the more difficult it is to help them develop at the same pace as when there was in-person interaction. A lot of them are sitting in apartments by themselves. You lose the informal learning opportunities.”
Tom Mroz, President of the American Society of Landscape Architects; senior vice president, SmithGroup
94 %
Of participants in a survey, carried out by Zhaner Architectural Manufacturing, were dissatisfied with current collaboration tools used in the Architecture & Design industry.
Poor planning/unrealistic scheduling, lack of information about the project, changes to the initial specifications, and available of resources are the most common causes of project delays.
Cornerstone Projects UK Survey, 2017
Professionals in the Architecture and Interior Design Industry need to change their mindset.
“In fact, architects in the coming years will be needed less as content providers of design intent than as facilitators, orchestrators, collaborators and integrators (or FOCI) of this information and process.”
Randy Deutch, Design Intelligence
Lauren Bonhomme
Based upon the research conducted, this persona was created help facilitate in the creative process.
Who Is Lauren?
Lauren is an intermediate designer for a medium-sized architecture and interior design firm in Toronto, ON. Having just recently been promoted to her position as an intermediate, she has now taken on responsibilities such as client relations and vendor coordination for furniture suppliers.
When she was a junior designer, she noticed how her old intermediate designer experienced miscommunication problems from external vendors and partners. Due to this, projects were often delayed. She’s afraid of encountering the same problems now that she’s in this role but is also being diligent in preventing them.
Painpoints
- She often experiences breakdowns in communication with external partners and internally with higher-ups
- Managing multiple projects has been overwhelming to her since starting as an intermediate designer
- Keeping track of her team members, especially because most are still working remotely, can be difficult at times
What does she want?
- Lauren values punctuality, so she strives to finish projects on time
- She values both existing industry relationships and strives to form new ones
- A believer in new tools, she is open to using new methods and ways of doing things to get the job done
How Might We improve the collaboration efforts between architects, interior designers, suppliers, and contractors in order to facilitate more efficient project progress?
User Stories & Task Flow
User Stories
To help facilitate the creation of a task flow, over 20 users stories were created to get into the mindset of Lauren. Below are the top stories that fell into the main theme of Situational Representation.
Task Flow
After the user stories were gathered and organized, the main task to be demonstrated by Coalesce would be Accessing A Project's Status. This can also be summed up in one further user story, stated below.
“As an interior designer in a large architecture firm, I want to be able to keep track of the project progress of external parties/firms that I'm working with in order to help us keep on schedule.”
Sketches
Ideation Sketches
Development Sketches
Solution Sketches
Prototyping Phase
Initial Prototype
User Testing Feedback - Session One
User Testing Plan
In order to gather feedback to help improve the product, a plan was set in place for user testing. The below list outlines the steps that were planned out.
1. Gather three to five participants for user testing.
2. With each participant, conduct a 15 minute zoom call.
3. While user is testing prototype in figma, have them talk aloud about what they are doing.
4. Record notes on their likes/dislikes.
5. Take key learnings of each interview and apply to design prioritization matrix.
Scenario: You are part of a design team working with another firm on a project. You see that a project has been flagged as urgent. How would you go about finding out more about the matter?
Design Feedback and Prioritization
Second Prototype
Changes Made - Version One Vs. Version Two
User Testing Feedback - Session Two
Third Prototype
Coalesce - High Fidelity Version
In this fourth an final version of Coalesce, a few changes were made that affected the UI, but not the functionality of it.
A few UI elements were changed out, colour was injected into the components, and smaller issues were ironed out.
The first version of the High-Fidelity mockup.
In the second version of the High-Fidelity mockup, a few changes were made. The top nav bar's colour was reduced in intensity. Secondly, the progress bars in the home page project cards were removed. These were replaced with completion percentages as they convey more concise information.
UI Library
Why A Website?
Once a product is made, it can't just be left on the app store as if people are going to flock for it. Marketing campaigns and materials help spread the word about products, like Coalesce, to the target users.
A marketing website is a sort main hub for the product. This helps tell a potential user about what the product is all about. All the functions, benefits, and other related materials live here.
It's also a good way to direct traffic to social media channels and download pages for the product as well.
Feature cards inform the user of the most useful functions of Coalesce.
Testimonials give a glimpse into how the product has positively affected target users in their daily lives.
A secondary call to action at the bottom of the page makes sure that the user has a way to access download links once they have informed themselves about the product. The footer contains links to more info about the company and social links for users to further engage with the brand.
Design Impact, Key Learnings, and Next Steps
Design Impact
With the introduction of Coalesce, it is hoped that the product’s experience will help improve collaboration within the Interior Design and Architecture field.
This means:
- Better maintained industry relationships
- Less miscommunication
- Less delays
Key Learnings
- The creative process within both the UX design and Industrial design fields is extremely similar
- Speaking to users to get their insights, perspectives, and feedback proved to be one of the most useful tools during the creation of Coalesce
- The UI of a product is just as important as its UX
Next Steps
- Further user testing of the high-fidelity prototype to refine Coalesce even more
- Speaking with developers about how to effectively build the product out
- Creating a marketing campaign to target Interior Designers and Architects
- Getting approval for distribution of the product on the Google Play Store