SUBSMART
A mobile app (with a web back end Admin Panel) to enable AMBC Limited Bricklayers and subcontractors to provide onboarding accreditations, book in lifts and submit lift completion for payment. Management of bricklaying jobs will be key to enabling AMBC to maintain Bricklayers compliance, assess and approve work to pay according to lift completion.
Client
AMBC Ltd.
Platform
Mobile & Web
Timeline
August 2025 - November 2025
Role
Led an end to end design process from research to implementation, collaborating with Product manager, Graphic designer, QA engineer, Developers and managing client meetings.
The impact
Streamlined the AMBC process by digitizing operations, enabling efficient site record management, subcontractor allocation, and invoice processing resulting in substantial time savings and improved operational efficiency.
Project kickoff
The project began with initial online meeting with client where we briefly discussed and understand the key areas & stakeholders in the business.
Problem statement
To provide a simple and easy to use solution for bricklayers to track their work progress for payment. Currently this is all done via pen and paper, this will be an intuitive solution for AMBC with the potential for them to white label this to other bricklayer and construction companies in the future.
Deep diving into client business
A questionnaire was created for the client in order to gather required information about the working of current business, problems faced in the current workflow, understanding target users etc.
Six people were interviewed: 4 Bricklayers, 1 Gang leader, 1 Site supervisor. User interviews were conducted on site of a client.
Questionnaire created for bricklayers, gang leader and site supervisor
1
What is the current process to complete lifts?
2
Do all the bricklayers work on same plots of the site?
3
What are the common problems faced on site?
4
Who is responsible for document checks?
5
What documents are required to work on site?
6
How is the work progress confirmed on site?
7
How often you use your phone on site?
8
Is it easy to operate phone with gloves on?
Survey outcome
Manual process
Bricklayer record the completion of work on paper. It’s difficult to handle paper copy during bad whether or due to the wet site conditions.
Time consuming
Time consuming for supervisor to mark and approve work done.
Manual process of calculation and creating invoice.
Document check
Hard for gang leader to keep record of all bricklayers. Often need to check expiry of all the bricklayers document and update information with Admin.
Client pain points
Manual onboarding
ID checks, CSCS checks (and ongoing management) can be time consuming and unreliable.
Inaccuracy
The current process lacks transparency for all parties and possible inaccurate.
Difficult for bricklayers
It can be difficult when bricklayers leave or join, particularly in calculating their payments.
Payment takes to long
Manual nature of the calculation, and also the calculation of CIS and getting UTRs can be painful.
Project goals
Streamline admin work
To streamline the admin work for AMBC online without having to manually work out outstanding work.
Sign offs and approval
Breaking each lift within a job down into increments (25% ,50%, 75% and 100%) once the completion level is marked.
Updated information
Ensure all bricklayers on site are compliant and have their accreditations up to date (ID checks, CSCS checks).
Intuitive design
Ensure the app is simple enough for the bricklayers to use as they’re not good with technology.
User journey mapping
Stages
Before the site work
During the site work
After the site work
Actions
Jacob get’s contacted for a site work as a Bricklayer.
Jacob accepts job & share all the site details with gang members
Progress done on Lifts is marked & shared with supervisor
Invoice created is sent to Admin to process payment.
Jacob and gang is ready for next site work
After receiving payment, contract ends with Admin.
All the details about the site and work is sent to him.
Jacob & his gang starts working on site.
Based on marked progress, every Friday invoice is created.
Mapping key features
Bricklayers/Subcontractors (Mobile App)
Profile creation
Ability to create and add gang members
Overview
Overview of jobs & workers allocated to different jobs/site
Job submission
Ability to submit lifts / jobs for approval.
Invoice procession
Ability to create invoice and send it to admin for processing.
Site Manager (Mobile App)
Delete profile
Ability to remove subcontractor profile.
Overview
Overview of jobs & workers allocated to different jobs/site
Approval
Ability to review & approve completed lifts/jobs
Amend progress
Ability to amend progress of lifts/jobs submitted.
Admin panel (Web app)
Profile creation
Ability to create profile for subcontractors and bricklayers
Expiry reminders
CSCS, UTR and CIS check and ability to send reminders when expiring
Property details
Ability to input a plot number, input price list for jobs, the total cost for house build
Create gangs
Ability to create “gangs” (group of worker working on a job together)
Project scope
What’s in scope
Admin allocating site to gangs and bricklayer.
Site progress confirmation for supervisor.
Invoice creation for Gang leaders and Bricklayers
Record of all the bricklayers and completed sites.
What’s not in scope
Automatic payments for gangs and bricklayers.
Everyday attendance of bricklayers on site.
Record of toolbox talk on site.
Supervisor allocating site to gangs and bricklayer.
Risks
Can’t access the mobile app and web app without internet.
Difficult the operate phone while construction kit on.
Heavy operations might slow down app.
Dependancies
Admin will always have to rely on supervisor to mark the site progress.
Bricklayer won’t get paid unless supervisor approves the work done.
Design phase
After successfully discussing every key features and scope with client and assuring that we have covered all the required information, now it was time to start the design phase.
Wireframes
Design phase started with wireframes and exploring multiple solutions. Feedback was noted from client and changes were made as per the requirement.
Visual design & branding
I created a colour palette with 1 primary, 2 secondary and 3 neutral colours. The choice for typography has fallen on Poppins font with a decent x-height for legibility. Created a components of header, tiles, footer, buttons and icons.
With those elements added to my low fidelity wireframes, I made my way into high-fidelity designs.
Components Library
Hi-Fi Designs
After successful session on wireframes and colour palette, I started working on designing Hi-Fi designs.
Onboarding - Admin
Easy and efficient onboarding for admin.
Creating jobs & allocating subcontractor/gang- Admin
Preparing and sharing a new list of sites with the subcontractors took considerable time.
Admin now can create sites in the web app and easily share and allocate worker to the site reducing extra effort and time.
Keeping record of all completed sites- Admin
Current documentation of completed site record was chaotic and messy. Now admin can keep the digital record of all the completed sites.
Accessing jobs and marking the work progress - Subcontractor
Initially this was done on paper, now subcontractor can access jobs via app and mark the work progress within the app which can be seen by Site supervisor and Admin.
Approving the work of subcontractors - Supervisor
Supervisor used to approve the work progress by marking it on paper and used to inform Admin about the progress. Now supervisor can approve the work in app which will automatically notify admin and subcontractors about the site progress.
QA Testing
Internal QA Testing
Overall, internal figma testing was quite satisfying. All the flows were working as expected and it was also made sure that the UI design is pixel perfect.
Figma prototype was tested with Bricklayers and Supervisor and received positive feedback. There were minor tweaks which were updated in design.
Design Handover
The handover document was created with the recordings explaining each and every functionality in the flow. The prototype was also added which majorly helped in the handover meeting as it was easier to explain the process to the dev team.
A separate handover document was created with added annotations and explanation of each screen. The project handover was made in four phases covering all the core features of Subcontractors mobile app, Supervisors mobile app and Admin panel.
Key Takeaways
Challenges:
To find the right angle together as a team with an interesting user experience when dealing with a business to business client.
To cope up with different scenarios and multiple user types without making the flow complicated and boring.
To think about detailed aspects users might need when designing flows for all user types.
Lesson learnt:
Seek out feedback early and continually
The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Keeping the stakeholders/users in loop and testing solutions in whatever form (paper, low-fi or hi-fi) as early as possible saves ample amount of time and re-work.
Simplicity is strength
As a designer, we are often lured by attractive, trendy and out of the box designs. But, we must always remember the ‘why’. The primary goal is to understand the user, their problems and then come up with a design that solves it.
Prioritize
Create a design strategy before starting any new project. This helps deal with out-of-scope requests that could potentially derail the project and helps deliver a quality product in time.