Duration: 2 years Role: UX Research, Lead Product Design
Document Management
|| A Case Study in Delivering Globally Compliant Construction Solutions
Introduction
As a Senior Product Designer at Procore, a leading construction project management software company, I played a pivotal role in developing a document management solution that transformed our international expansion efforts. This case study details the design process, challenges overcome, and the ultimate success of the project, which positioned Procore as a best-in-class, fully ISO 19650 compliant, solution for multi-billion dollar government projects across Europe, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia.
The Challenge: Bridging the Compliance Gap
Following the successful launch of the Inspection Test Plan (ITP) application, which addressed quality control needs in international markets, I was tasked with leading the design for a document management solution - Procore's number one initiative.This initiative was crucial for achieving full compliance with ISO 19650, a critical standard for construction projects across international markets where Procore was looking to quickly expand.
Traditionally, the construction industry was plagued by disconnected tools hindering collaboration, leading to duplicate documents, missed updates, and confusion. Existing solutions lacked robust construction features and collaboration capabilities, especially for the construction phase of the project. Despite Procore’s advances in the space and development of many solutions for the course of construction, there remained a disconnect between design and pre-construction teams and the teams building out the project. My mission was to lead the redesign of Procore’s core user experience in a way that would satisfy the ISO requirements and allow for a single source of truth of all documents created, modified, and collaborated on Procore’s platform.
Deep Research and User Empathy
To grasp the complexities of document management in a global context, I embarked on a comprehensive research journey. I conducted over 50 user interviews and 20 prototype tests with document controllers, PMs, engineers, architects, contractors, and reviewers globally. This included:
Competitive Analysis: I meticulously evaluated leading construction management software solutions like Aconex, Autodesk, and Viewpoint, analyzing their features and compliance strengths with ISO 19650.
User Interviews:
Extensive calls were conducted with document managers, project managers, field workers, and office personnel across Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain. This provided invaluable insights into their document management pain points and workflow preferences.
Understanding Design-Build:
I delved into and mapped the nuances of the design-build process, a prevalent approach in international projects, contrasting it with the traditional design-bid-build process. Design-build necessitates a more flexible and iterative approach to construction, demanding new document management requirements focused on accessibility, collaboration, and real-time updates.
Persona Development:
By creating detailed user personas representing various stakeholders in the construction process, I gained a deeper understanding of their needs, expectations, and technical proficiency.
Journey Mapping:
I created a journey map for the design-build process, focusing on key personas like the client, architect, document controllers, and project manager. I also mapped out their interactions from concept to project delivery to understand interactions and streamline communication for successful outcomes.
Key Requirements Emerge
After conducting extensive research and interviews, we obtained valuable insights to determine the key requirements essential for our document management tool's design. Through this process, we discovered the following key requirements for our document management system that would satisfy the user needs and international compliance standards. These findings served as the foundation for guiding our design efforts to develop a document management tool that meets the diverse needs and expectations of our users.
A configurable naming standard and automated tagging:
All documents had to be reviewed for accuracy before they entered the system and required a uniform, yet flexible naming convention. Creating the 7-part name often required a lot of work and took many hours across thousands of documents so our tool had to make this as automatic and easy as possible.
Robust approval workflows and permissions:
Documents had to go through approval workflows before they got uploaded into the system in order to check if all of the metadata was correct and no changes needed to be made to the document. Permissions were also required to grant access to the correct types of documents in order to prevent confusion around building off of unapproved documents. Permissions further allowed document controllers to tailor the retrieval and viewing experience for field crews and avoid overwhelming them with too many irrelevant documents.
Universal document viewing, markup, and version control:
All documents had to have a universal viewing and markup experience as opposed to the varied and disjointed experience across Procore’s current tools. Versioning was also extremely important so that users could retrieve old versions at any moment for legal and compliance reasons. Field workers often needed to compare versions in order to see the changes made and determine what and how to build.
Integration across Procore's suite of construction management tools:
The design-build process is iterative and parts of the building get built while other parts are still getting designed. The document management tool would need to serve as the backbone into which all of Procore’s tool would eventually be integrated in order to serve the whole construction process from Project bidding until the final walkthrough.
These key requirements, carefully identified through extensive research and user feedback, became the solid foundation for our design process of the document management tool. We focused on incorporating features and functionalities that not only cater to a wide range of user needs but also align with their distinct preferences, guaranteeing a versatile and user-centric final product.
Iterative Design and User Validation
Armed with research findings, I initiated the design phase and spearheaded an iterative prototyping process with 3 major versions, each incorporating user feedback across the main focus countries. We conducted comprehensive usability testing, testing and iterating on 15+ versions of our v1 prototype before arriving at a complete and intuitive experiences for office workers and field crews
Prototyping:
Multiple prototype iterations were created and tested with users. This facilitated gathering feedback and ensured the solution addressed all regulatory requirements and streamlined workflows.
Global Usability Testing:
The prototypes were continuously iterated upon based on user feedback from all target regions. We started with wireframes to communicate the idea and evolved to the first high fidelity prototype as we continued to search for all the user needs. We iterated between user calls and throughout the 2 year process of designing the tool. The 2nd version of the prototype was finalized enough to guide our teams as they began to build the document management solution, but we kept refining individual features. After about a year on the project we shipped the refined prototype of V3 based on feedback we heard along the way and changes we made due to engineering constraints. For V4 we followed the same steps, changing little regarding the main functionality, but building out the prototype as we kept adding features that we prioritized throughout the development process. The prototypes were meant to communicate our goal and vision for the document management tool to our greater team and be a reference post for the complete journey of all personas involved. We created and tested other more targeted and detailed prototypes for individual features that were shipped during this process.
Building Based on the Key Requirements
After conducting extensive research and interviews, we obtained valuable insights to determine the key requirements essential for our document management tool's design. Through this process, we discovered the following key requirements for our document management system that would satisfy the user needs and international compliance standards. These findings served as the foundation for guiding our design efforts to develop a document management tool that meets the diverse needs and expectations of our users.
A configurable naming standard and automated tagging:
All documents had to be reviewed for accuracy before they entered the system and required a uniform, yet flexible naming convention. Creating the 7-part name often required a lot of work and took many hours across thousands of documents so our tool had to make this as automatic and easy as possible.
Robust approval workflows and permissions:
Documents had to go through approval workflows before they got uploaded into the system in order to check if all of the metadata was correct and no changes needed to be made to the document. Permissions were also required to grant access to the correct types of documents in order to prevent confusion around building off of unapproved documents. Permissions further allowed document controllers to tailor the retrieval and viewing experience for field crews and avoid overwhelming them with too many irrelevant documents.
Universal document viewing, markup, and version control:
All documents had to have a universal viewing and markup experience as opposed to the varied and disjointed experience across Procore’s current tools. Versioning was also extremely important so that users could retrieve old versions at any moment for legal and compliance reasons. Field workers often needed to compare versions in order to see the changes made and determine what and how to build.
Onboarding and User Education:
I co-created and oversaw the onboarding process for our initial beta user group, ensuring a smooth transition to the new platform.
Integration across Procore's suite of construction management tools:
The design-build process is iterative and parts of the building get built while other parts are still getting designed. The document management tool would need to serve as the backbone into which all of Procore’s tool would eventually be integrated in order to serve the whole construction process from Project bidding until the final walkthrough.
Scaling the Solution: Prioritization and User-Centric Development
As the project progressed, I played a crucial role in:
Feature Prioritization: Working with product managers, I prioritized the feature roadmap based on ongoing user feedback and early adoption data.
Team Restructuring: To optimize the development process for additional features, I actively participated in team restructuring efforts. We went from a group of Designers primarily working together to designated pods focused on individual features as the core of the product was already in place. PMs and Engineering made a similar change and allowed us to build and ship much faster.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: For all feature development I collaborated extensively with design systems teams, internal stakeholders, and product managers to ensure seamless integration of document management workflows into the broader Procore ecosystem.
A Global Success Story
The document management solution was launched to an initial audience of 100 companies. The innovative document management solution revolutionized the industry through:
Global Compliance: Best-in-class document control facilitated adherence to ISO 19650, enabling Procore to compete effectively in international markets.
Improved Collaboration: Centralized document management fostered seamless collaboration between project stakeholders across geographical boundaries.
Enhanced Efficiency: The platform streamlined document storage, review, and revision control, saving time and reducing errors for all personas in the document management journey.
Increased Productivity: Users reported significant improvements in their overall productivity due to AI automation for metadata, collaborative editing, and configurable and efficient workflows
Painting a vision for the future: Connected vision for the next phase of connecting all of Procore’s existing functionality to the centralized document control hub
By centralizing documentation with rich collaboration, Procore bridged the design-construction gap. Within a year, adoption exceeded expectations as contractors praised the unified experience:
Quotes
"Because of Procore, we’ve been able to reduce the folders that we use. All of our RFIs, Submittals, Drawings, Documents all go on an online platform which is a lot more accessible, environmentally friendly, and easy to use.” -Lauren Kelly, Project Manager
“It was what we had been looking for, and Procore brought it all under one construction umbrella" - Kevin Logan, General Contractor
Conclusion
Through extensive research, iterative design, and customer commitment, we delivered an ISO 19650 compliant document management solution that transformed construction documentation globally. The system enables efficient collaboration while ensuring a single auditable source of truth, a game-changer for international projects and Procore’s expansion efforts.