Forging a connection of mutual trust between Architects and Clients
Systems Thinking | Service Design | UX Research | UX Design
OVERVIEW
Exploring the relationship between Architects and Clients to understand where and why is Trust lost in the process, with a focus on freelancers and small businesses, in India.
GOAL
To help Architects avoid delays in timeline and loss of goodwill to improve the overall efficiency of architectural projects.
OUTCOME
Our integrated project management service ARCH, helps architects who want to improve the overall efficiency of architectural projects by avoiding delays in timeline and enable to build goodwill through an app that offers collaborative communication, a rewards system, and a way to measure client satisfaction.
FINAL PITCH DECK
ROLE
Service Designer and Researcher
MENTOR
Ricardo Martins - Professor
TIMELINE
Sep 2023 - Mar 2024
TOOLS
Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Miro
Challenge
Freelance and small business Architects have to consistently earn and keep client trust and approval, considering the need to prove credibility repeatedly, even with a strong portfolio, and manage client expectations to avoid undue scrutiny of mistakes.
Introducing
What ?
Communication platform
Arch is an architectural project management app, primarily for architects that provides clients with real-time project updates about their site and simplifies communication for all the stakeholders involved.
Why?
Maintain transparency
To streamline and optimize the management of architectural projects, ensuring efficiency and satisfaction among clients while staying involved and updated about their space.
How?
Real-time updates
By providing a centralized platform for communication, tracking progress, implementing rewards, measuring client satisfaction, and setting clear expectations all under one roof.
72.3%
Clients think that their relationship with the architect can be improved if they’re more transparent.
71.4%
Architects said that the one thing they could change about doing a project would be timelines.
Research
Research began by understanding the relationship between Architects and Clients, in India, to understand where and why is trust lost in the process, with a focus on freelancers and small businesses.
Current state of the Architectural ecosystem
Insights
Synthesising our research, we were able to narrow down on one main root cause which had two emerging gaps and leverage points that we wished to probe further in the process.
01 LACK OF TRANSPARENCY:
How do we facilitate upward communication to support trust and transparency in the service?
As we began our research a key finding that emerged was a lack of transparency during a project lifecycle. Delays in timelines and loss of goodwill led to clients losing trust in the architect.
02 DELAYS IN TIMELINE:
How can the offerings address the delays in timeline tied to various factors within the system?
Slow decision making by clients, vendors failing to inform about anticipated delays, or not delivering on time, laborers taking leaves leading to loss of manpower led to a lot of time being lost.
03 LOSS OF GOODWILL:
How can we provide a solution for the loss of goodwill for the architect through a project lifecycle ?
Many internal and external factors create roadblocks for architects. There is no way to measure goodwill and its impact on their business.
Arch is an integrated project management service, that helps architects who want to improve the overall efficiency of architectural projects by avoiding delays in timeline and enables them to build goodwill through an app.
Service offerings
Communication platform
Reward system
Setting expectations
Client satisfaction measurement
Key digital interactions
ArchFor Architects
A complete tool to assist contractors and site managers with execution timelines, resource management and to stay in touch with clients for an insightful feedback system.
Manage multiple clients at once, with reduced actions on the homepage with quick access to each project.
Client portfolio
An overview of all the clients the architect/ contractor is handling and their status.
Client management
With progressive information reveal, the architect receives granular information about the site for varied levels of involvement at any given time.
Issue collection
A quick summary of all the issues raised by the clients, architect or any other stakeholder.
ArchFor Clients
Real-time updates
DAILY UPDATE OF SITE
Stay involved and up-to-date with what is happening on your site with a real-time checklist managed by the architect and the contractor.
Clients can chat with the architect and/ or contractor regarding any task through Arch.
All media or documents received within the chats, are automatically saved as documentation of the project within Arch.
DAILY SCHEDULE
Well organized task management with daily updates and reports.
Easy approvals
Upload documents for client review, in real-time, and receive quick approvals. Clients can add comments if something seems amiss and that reflects within the messages.
Measuring client satisfaction
Clients receive periodic surveys to at milestones to understand and gauge their levels of satisfaction or any gaps they’re experiencing.
ArchFor Contractors
Labourers and Vendors
Get rewarded
Earn points for regular attendance, arriving to work on time, logging regular attendance, and for timely and quick deliveries.
These points can be redeemed as
monetary returns.
Some common featuresFor all our stakeholders
Attendance tracking
Earn points for regular attendance, for arriving to work on time, logging regular attendance, timely and quick deliveries.
These points can be redeemed as monetary returns.
Documentation
A record of everything shared within Arch, during a project lifecycle.
In-app Payments
Stay on top of your payment for each phase with the Payment tracker. The amount for each transaction is clearly mentioned.
Site support
A one stop section to manage issues, stay in touch with the architect and/ or contractor and learn about the quality checks at every step along the way.
Why is Arch different?
Arch is the only service that has features tailored specifically for architectural project management, such as:
This tailored approach is what sets Arch apart from more generic project management solutions.
Architectural Ecosystem Before & After the Solution
Before (Current State)
After (Future State)
Benefits and impact
DISCOVER
Survey responses
We conducted interviews with 15 participants, some of which were Clients and some were Architects. These were the key findings.
What People Had to Say
Setting expectations
“I think trust is lost due to money, the sub-people involved, and my expectations not being met.”
Clients
Communication
“I basically just want great communication. And being given everything. Maybe if you want to call it babysitting.”
Accessibility
“If my Architect that I'm paying money to is not accessible, I think it wouldn't matter if the delivery is the best or if it's the best house that he or she has given me.”
Setting expectations
“When the expectations are not met, and when we just keep on saying yes, yes, yes to every client and every demand, but are we delivering that?”
Architects
Transparency
“We need to be more transparent. We need to stop taking the extra money (cut). We need to be more open about things.”
Decision-making
“The Client needs to make up their mind and not keep going back on their word.”
Strategy
User
Tanya Medi
Age 30, Mumbai
Freelance Architect
How and when should the service interact with Tanya?
The product should interact with Tanya from the very beginning. Even before her pain begins, to reduce her discomfort, guilt, and anxiety by being on top of things and avoiding any discrepancies.
DESIGN
I started by listing all the features and functions and iterated different flows for the interactions.
The IA and the flow of the app are shared between 4 stakeholders in the ecosystem: Architects, Clients, Contractors and Vendors.
Features and functions
Site map
Application flow
Low fidelity wireframes
The app was tested with 2 stakeholders within the ecosystem i.e. Architects and Clients. This was the feedback given by each of them.
Service User Testing
