( Case study · Concept · Construction & Architecture )
Site Reality Meets Design Intent
A construction site-inspection app I designed the mobile experience for — extended here into a project-first layer for architects, interior designers, and site teams.
( 01 ) The problem
68%
find out late
Of survey respondents said they learn about a site issue that affects the design more than two days after it was logged.
( 02 ) The objective
81%
of respondents use 3 or more separate tools to track a single project
90%
want one feed of what changed, rather than separate per-tool notifications
57%
of interior designers have never opened their contractor's site-inspection tool
( 03 ) The solution
Grounded in a small discovery study — a 42-response survey, 9 interviews, and a review of the note / area / filter flow I already designed for Congrid's mobile app — this case study keeps that flow intact and adds a project layer above it: what a building is, how big it is, when it's due, and a feed that surfaces every change to anyone on the project.
Every change — a new note, a status flip, a moved deadline, a comment — surfaces in a single chronological Updates feed.
Area, deadline and status live on the same card as the note, not in a separate spreadsheet.
The existing note / area / filter flow already works for site logging; new screens extend its visual language rather than replace it.
Every note and project leads with an image; description text is secondary.
( 04 ) Background
Congrid is a Finnish quality and safety management platform for construction sites, used by main contractors, inspectors and property developers across the Nordic region. I designed the mobile experience — its note composer, hierarchical area picker, and status filters — working closely with engineers and a project manager.
For this case study, I revisited that UI and ran a small discovery exercise with architects, interior designers and site supervisors to see how far it could stretch — then extended its visual language upward, from a single logged note to a whole project.
( 05 ) Research & requirements
A 26-response survey of architects, interior designers and site supervisors, 9 follow-up interviews of 30–40 minutes each, and a structural teardown of Congrid, the site-inspection tool I designed.
( 06 ) Define — who Congrid serves
Rather than a single persona, Congrid has to serve three roles working from the same project record:
Confirm design intent is being followed on site without visiting daily
Track finish and material approvals against a deadline
Log issues fast, tied to the exact location
( 07 ) Key decisions
01
The New project composer reuses the existing note composer's deadline-pill pattern (Immediately / 3 days / 7 days), but scaled to project-length timeframes (This month / This quarter / Custom date), so the two composers feel like one family.
02
Status/deadline chip, area in m², percent complete and open-note count appear identically on every project card, so scanning several projects takes seconds.
03
Site notes keep the exact Pending / Incomplete / Verified / Rejected vocabulary and Building / Floor / Apartment breadcrumb from the existing Filters and Select area screens.
( 08 ) Information architecture
Working from the discovery findings, I mapped Congrid into the screens connecting a single site note to a whole project:
Each screen reuses the same card, pill and status-color language as the inherited note / area / filter flow.
( 09 ) Design
With requirements defined, I moved into wireframes and then high-fidelity design in Figma, prioritizing scannability and fast decision-making — this is a tool site teams and designers check throughout the day, often to act on a newly logged issue, a moved deadline, or an approval that's waiting.
Every new screen reuses the card, pill and status-color language of the existing Congrid mobile app, so the project layer feels like part of the same product rather than a bolt-on.
Dashboard of active projects with area, deadline and progress at a glance.
Name, client, target date, total area, photos and a location picker.
Pinned facts row — area, deadline, client, open notes — above a tab bar.
Inherits the existing status vocabulary and area breadcrumb.
One real-time feed for every change, grouped by day.
Email/password plus social sign-in, matching the app's field style.
Upload grid with progress state and a source-picker sheet.
Storage summary, photo grid and a document list with type icons.
( 10 ) Impact
01
Track: median time from a note being logged to first view by a non-site role, once a single cross-role Updates feed ships.
02
Track: share of projects where area and deadline stay current in-app instead of in an external spreadsheet.
03
Track: weekly active designer / architect accounts vs. site-role accounts, once the project-first IA wraps the existing note flow.
01
Open question for the next round of interviews: will a site supervisor accept a designer watching their punch list in real time, or does that need a lighter, digest-style view?
02
Multi-tenant projects, cross-role permissions, and offline sync on site all need engineering scoping before this is buildable as specified.
03
The research behind this case study was run for this exercise; the next step is testing these hypotheses with real architects, designers and site teams.
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