My role
This was a one-off contract for a 3 months period to design a new end-to-end feature on the existing application completely
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- Lead designer for estimation features (team of 2)
- Co-lead planner and facilitator for presentations and working sessions for all features
Timeframe
07/2023- 09/2023 (Design)
Tools
- Figma
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Miro
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Illustrator
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UserTesting.com
BACKGROUND
About Grace
Grace is a SaaS company offering a digital bid estimation and tracking tool launched in December 2024. They mainly offer construction companies the ability to create estimations, formulate proposals, and track and manage bids for projects in a centralized location.​
Project overview
​​The construction industry is highly competitive, with companies vying for clients by submitting bids that meet specific customer criteria. To win a bid and secure the job, your bid must stand out among numerous competitors.
As a project manager, your responsibilities include:
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Meeting sales quotas, which often means bidding on multiple projects at once.
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Estimating job costs as accurately as possible to provide the customer with precise quotes while safeguarding your company from unforeseen costs not covered in the contract.
Grace sought a digital solution that would work with their bid tracking tool. This solution would empower construction companies to submit the most accurate and competitive bids while reducing the time spent on estimations. Since multiple bids are often handled simultaneously, companies lack the time and resources to dedicate significant effort to the estimation process.
To address this, a digital estimation tool was required, allowing users to create, track, and manage project bids in one centralized platform, streamlining the entire process and doing the heavy lifting.
DISCOVER - RESEARCH
Who will be using this product?​
Bid creation and management is generally managed by the company's sales executives and project managers. These users generally fall into 2 persona categories nl. : 1) Seasoned experts and 2) Industry newcomers.
Shared pain points
😓
Constant Pressure & Time Constraints
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"I’m constantly rushed, juggling 5-10 bids at the same time with looming due dates."
😓
Uncertainty in Commitment
"It’s hard to commit resources to a bid without knowing my chances of winning. I can’t afford to over-invest in a single bid."
😓
Inconsistent Project Execution
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"Every project is unique. Even if two jobs seem similar, they often require different approaches or solutions."
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😓
Conflicting Priorities
"I want to be accurate with my estimates, but I also need to lower my prices to be competitive and win the job."
😓
Adverse to change​
​"If a new system is slower than my current process, like Excel, I’ll just revert back to using it. I don’t have the patience for anything that’s not fast and efficient."
DEFINE
Objectives
Based on all the pain points, our jobs were cut out for us. We narrowed it down to 3 main areas of focus below:
The solution had to:
DEVELOP
Today even industry leaders are still using antiquated solutions for estimations like Excel spreadsheets 😬
Issues
Not automated, unless users use some fancy Excel trickery to provide some form of automation
Time consuming and prone to human error
Rigid. Does not offer a lot of flexibility based on the project type OR user preference.
Complicated to read and review
Some of the prioritized features
Proposal creation
Users use Excel today to create their estimations and usually manually create a proposal based on estimation values. This feature allows estimation values to be captured automatically in your proposal and allows for easy side-by-side comparison, as well as a catalog of template types and styles to choose from.
Customizable estimation tables
Since most users are used to using Excel for estimations, we retained the cell-like functionality and visuals they are used to and like, but with enhanced functionality nl. grouping and nesting functionality. This allows different companies to retain their way of working and reduce the learning curve for new application adoption.
Summaries and review functions
Since speed was one of the objectives we had to satisfy, we added the ability to view your estimations in a summary view by cost type, trade, or customized groups. This gave users the opportunity to review their estimations at a high level and add margin or markup to sections where they saw fit to ensure that they would be able to cover their costs with some wiggle room.
Assemblies
We added the functionality that allows users to save and reuse whole estimations or sections of an estimation, known as assemblies in the industry, for future bids. Many projects differ vastly, but materials and labor allocations for certain renovations or retrofits are consistent from one job to another.
DELIVER
Outcomes: How did we do?
Unfortunately at the time of creating this case study, the estimation feature was product was yet to go live, so performance has yet to be determined, however from usability testing and running a small beta with the first client group we were able to procure the following feedback.
EVOLVE
Future iterations opportunities?
🤖
Smart text and predictive phrases so users don;t have to descriptions from scratch
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Ability to add comments and reminders on estimation tables for future reviews and edits
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Create admin catalog for easy search and entry when it comes to materials ​names​