Drawboard

How Design Research enables a team to collaborate effectively and build a cohesive digital product.

Screen of a tablet showing a structural roofing engineering plan
 

Snapshot

Client Drawboard

Assignment Drawboard Projects

My Role Visual Design

 
 

Research Tools

 

Internal Interviews

UI Analysis and Review

Personas

User Journey Mapping

Digital Sketch Prototyping

Visual Design

Research Details

The founder of Drawboard is an engineer and so are some of team members. They created Drawboard Projects to provide a digital alternative to the way engineers and architects usually mark up changes on paper plans. To figure out what issues people had with the traditional method, I conducted interviews using a user interview script. These interviews helped me understand what Drawboard wanted to offer. For instance, the app had to include a specific language for marking up designs that engineers and architects commonly use.

Internal/User interviews 

 
Black and white sketch of a man and woman seated on a table having a conversation with a board of design elements behind them
 

In order to be able to create new assets I had to thoroughly examine the design elements of the previous user interface considering the overall aesthetics and functionality. Whilst doing so, I also picked out all the elements from a large bank of illustrator files and created a style guide for myself and future designers to draw from.

UI Analysis and Review

 

Digital Sketch Prototyping

We learned quickly by using our own product. Instead of just sketching on paper, we used a pen tool on a window surface to create mockups.

Sketch of a woman standing and holding a stylus and a tablet
 
 

To help create something for multiple users, I made personas that detailed what users believe, what motivates them, and what frustrates them.

Personas

Sketch of two women and a man with their corresponding individual profile details, goals, and frustrations
 

Visual Design

I designed components of the visual product with the goal of maintaining a straight forward user experience. This involved carefully considering how typography, space, layouts, and color impact the usability of the product. My aim was to create uniform on brand designs that were easy to use and understand, without compromising on important information and functionality.

Two pictures on top of each other. The picture under is a screenshot of a pop up box of member contributors on the left and an engineering design on the right with comment in a text box. The screenshot above it are pictures of different roof designs.
Screenshot of a message thread of team members
A screen shot of a text box with list of Issues of a project
A screenshot of an engineering design for spaces
An ipad showing a roof engineering design on the screen. Below it is a stylus

Conclusion

I had a great learning experience while working at Drawboard. Being part of a big tech team and creating digital assets taught me a lot. My understanding of design research ensured that my work fit well with everyone else's.

We had a daily stand-up meeting where we quickly dealt with any problems and got to know each other. This was important for building friendships and asking for help when needed. Since many people worked on the project, having a style guide was very helpful.

Bullclip's new product was launched successfully and has been recognized as one of the top architectural products online. It was exciting to see so many peoples hard work pay off.