Sweeden
To design an engaging, educational, and interactive experience that supports children’s speech development while empowering parents to track progress and gain valuable insights into their child’s growth, interests, and engagement with their environment.
COLEDGER successfully addresses the pain points of contracting companies and multidisciplinary teams by:
Defining the problem is one of the most critical steps for a UI/UX designer because it provides a clear, focused direction for your work and showcases your design thinking skills.
Through stakeholder and user research, it became clear that contracting companies and engineers face significant challenges in managing complex construction projects. The key needs identified are as follows:
Though project managers of contracting companies are in charge of a number of projects, they’d face a challenge uniting inter-disciplinary teams. There is no single platform connecting architects, engineers, and designers for ongoing collaboration. Other issues include the absence of real-time communication features such as team chats, further isolating team members. Additionally, there is no system by which ongoing work across projects can be tracked, causing engineers and other stakeholders to miss updates. Therefore, no useful means exist for sharing project-specific information, keeping teams updated, or monitoring project work; these lead to inefficiencies, delays, and a lack of transparency.
COLEDGER was born as an all-in-one solution to solving the fragmented nature of construction project management and the problems associated with communication, file sharing, and team coordination. The platform allows contracting companies to create projects, assign teams, and manage all aspects of a project from a single, unified workspace. Each project has a shared working area where team members can share files, assign tasks, communicate in real-time, and share project progress.
COLEDGER brings together all project information into one repository that helps teams stay aligned and allows easy access to critical updates of all members of the team. It enhances collaboration and communication, bringing everyone up to speed and connected by eliminating the twin inefficiencies of using some stand-alone tools for different functionalities. In the end, this allows project teams to realize on-time delivery, under-budget performance, and increased openness.
The target audience for this UX design case study includes professionals in the architecture, civil engineering, interior design, and construction industries. It focuses on users within contracting companies who need streamlined collaboration tools for managing projects and teams. The design aims to meet the needs of both project managers and engineers, ensuring seamless project oversight and communication.
Objective:
To identify the needs, goals, and pain points of contracting companies and engineers managing complex construction projects, ensuring COLEDGER provides effective solutions.
Participants: Decision-makers, project managers, and team leads from contracting companies.
Key Questions Asked:
Participants: Architects, civil engineers, interior designers, and site managers.
Inefficient Communication: Difficulty in ensuring seamless communication across multidisciplinary teams.
Lack of Transparency: Challenges in getting a clear overview of project progress and identifying bottlenecks in real time.
Scattered Tools: Using multiple disconnected tools for project management, leading to inefficiencies and data silos.
Resource Allocation: Struggles with effectively assigning tasks and resources across various teams and projects.
Delay in Updates: Inconsistent or delayed updates on project milestones, causing delays in decision-making.
Scalability Issues: Current systems unable to manage the complexities of multiple large-scale projects.
Fragmented Communication Channels: Difficulty coordinating with other team members and stakeholders, leading to misalignments.
File Management Problems: Challenges in sharing, updating, and maintaining version control for large files such as schematics and blueprints.
Lack of Real-Time Updates: Delays in receiving critical information about project changes or progress.
Task Ambiguity: Unclear task assignments and responsibilities, leading to confusion and duplication of efforts.
Incompatibility with Existing Tools: Existing project management tools do not integrate well with specialized software like CAD.
Limited Collaboration Spaces: No dedicated areas to share updates, discuss tasks, or resolve issues collaboratively.
These points highlight the distinct challenges faced by each user group, helping to clarify how COLEDGER is uniquely positioned to address their specific needs.
After gathering insights from stakeholder and user interviews, I moved on to the ideation phase, where the focus was on creating solutions to the identified problems. To generate effective solutions, I conducted a series of brainstorming sessions These collaborative sessions helped the team and I develop a range of ideas, from low-fidelity sketches to more refined concepts.
Affinity Mapping: To structure my ideas and ensure they align with user pain points, used affinity mapping. This technique allowed me to group related insights into categories,
During the ideation phase, I created lo-fi and Hi-Fi to visualize the proposed solutions. These sketches included:
The COLEDGER platform is designed to serve as a comprehensive collaboration hub for professionals in architecture, civil engineering, interior design, and construction. It connects contracting companies with engineers, architects, and other professionals to streamline the project management process. Here’s an overview of the website:
The primary goal of the “Add Project” feature is to allow contracting companies to easily create and manage multiple construction projects within the COLEDGER platform. It serves as the initial step for creating a collaborative space for all project stakeholders, including architects, engineers, designers, and construction managers.
Start Managing the Project: Once the project is created, you can begin adding tasks, setting deadlines, sharing files, and using communication tools like chat spaces and messaging to collaborate with your team.
The Project Page in COLEDGER serves as a central hub for all project-related activities and information. It provides easy access to essential details about the project, team members, files, and communication channels, streamlining collaboration among contracting companies and their teams.
Project Name: Prominently displayed at the top, making it easy for users to identify the project.
Members: A list of all project members,
Location: The physical location of the project or the construction site.
Date: Display of the project start and end dates, ensuring that timelines are visible at a glance.
Full Overview: A comprehensive view of the project’s status, including timelines, milestones, and overall progress.
Members: A list of all project members with their roles, responsibilities, and current activities.
All Files: A section to view, download, or manage all uploaded project files.
Messages: A communication hub where users can send and receive messages regarding the project.
Archive: A space to store completed or outdated project files for record-keeping.
Delete: An option for project managers to delete the project if it’s no longer needed or if it’s been completed.
File Upload Options: Users can upload files directly from their computer, Google Drive, or via a link.
Add File: Allows users to add new files. This feature supports a variety of file types, from documents to design plans, and integrates cloud storage for easy access.
File Management: The files are organized and can be downloaded or viewed, ensuring easy access and version control.
A dedicated section where team members can comment and communicate about the project. This fosters collaboration by allowing members to ask questions, give feedback, and share important updates. Comments are threaded, allowing users to reply directly to specific messages for organized discussions.
The Manage Team and Member page is designed to simplify team management within COLEDGER. It allows contracting companies to create, organize, and assign teams for specific projects, ensuring that collaboration starts smoothly and team roles are clearly defined.
