Lessen Pre-Construction Walk
A native iOS experience allowing Field Project Managers to perform Pre-Construction inspections on the Lessen platform.
In 2021, Lessen launched the Pre-Construction Walk experience inside of the Field Project Manager app, a native iOS application designed for the internal Field Project Management (FPM) team. The primary device for this app was the iPad Air, provided to each user. The main goal was to streamline the pre-construction inspection process, reducing inspection times and increasing the number of properties inspected per day. This was a eight-week design effort.
2 Designers
9 Engineers
1 Product Manager
1 Content Strategist
My Role: Lead Product Designer
Before the development of the Pre-Construction Walk experience, FPMs relied on pen and paper for property inspections, leading to lengthy post-walk reconciliation processes. This manual method often resulted in delays, inaccuracies and inefficiencies, preventing FPMs from meeting deadlines and inspecting more properties.
Due to tight deadlines, I used remote user surveys and interviews to understand the needs of FPMs. The goal was to cut inspection times drastically and provide a flexible tool that could serve as the foundation for future scalable inspection services at Lessen. Regular collaboration with key stakeholders ensured alignment across product, design, engineering, and the internal FPM teams.
Given a tight eight-week timeline, I established frequent feedback loops with design and engineering teams. Wireframes were created and reviewed with various stakeholders including the product manager, engineering manager and the larger design and engineering teams. Prototypes were then tested with internal FPMs. Tools used included Figma for design and prototyping, Miro for whiteboarding, Zeplin for engineering handoff
Time constraints, designing for offline experiences, and understanding user needs without onsite observation were significant challenges. Empathizing with users through remote research and validating assumptions through frequent testing helped overcome these obstacles.
Lessen had an in-house created design system named Rivet that was utilized, maintained and carefully contributed to during this project.
Frequent meetings with engineering, including daily stand-ups, design reviews, sprint planning sessions, grooming and bug bashes ensured continuous alignment and clarity. I also paired closely with engineers throughout development phases to address any design issues that could arise.
The Pre-Construction experience needed to:
1. Allow FPMs to navigate room-by-room, verifying, editing, adding, or removing line items.
2. Provide quick line item verification.
3. Enable rearrangement of categories (rooms).
4. Facilitate fast post-walk reconciliation.
The app significantly reduced inspection times, with physical walk times dropping from 2 hours to 45 minutes on average. Post-walk reconciliation times fell from 1-2 hours to mere minutes. User adoption exceeded expectations, with the entire internal team using the tool within a month. FPMs appreciated the time savings and organizational improvements. Supervisors valued the increased accuracy and transparency in reconciliation. The successful launch and positive feedback enabled the team to focus on further feature development. Post-launch, based on user feedback, subtotals were added to line item cards, and a key was added at the top of category pages. Performance enhancements were made to the media service, reducing image upload times even in areas with no internet. Additional offline design enhancements improved user experience.
Establishing regular feedback loops and showing work early and often are crucial for large projects with tight timelines. Collaboration and compromise without sacrificing user needs or design integrity are essential for success.
Leading design on this project reinforced the importance of strategy, compromise and continuous learning. The successful collaboration and positive impact made it a rewarding experience.