SUBSMART

A web app to enable AMBC Limited Bricklayers and subcontractors to provide staff 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.

Role

Solo product designer

Platform

Mobile & Web

Timeline

August 2025 - November 2025

Client

AMBC Limited

Problem statement

AMBC (SubSmart) heavily dependends on manual processes, disconnected tools, and paper-based workflows to manage site operations, workforce coordination, compliance, and project tracking. This led to delays in communication, reduced visibility across projects, inefficient task management, and difficulties in maintaining operational consistency between teams and contractors.

The client needed a scalable digital platform that could simplify day-to-day construction workflows, improve collaboration between stakeholders, and help multiple construction businesses adopt a more structured and efficient way of working through a subscription-based solution.

Understanding client business

A questionnaire was created to gather the required information about the target users, understand how the current business operates, identify problems in the existing workflow, and gain insights into the target users.

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

Workflow & Site Operations

Can you walk us through the current process followed to complete lifts on site?
How are bricklayers typically assigned across different plots or areas of the site?
What are the most common challenges or inefficiencies you experience during daily site operations?
How is work progress currently tracked, reviewed, and confirmed on site?

Can you walk us through the current process followed to complete lifts on site?
How are bricklayers typically assigned across different plots or areas of the site?
What are the most common challenges or inefficiencies you experience during daily site operations?
How is work progress currently tracked, reviewed, and confirmed on site?

Compliance & Documentation

Who is responsible for managing and verifying site-related documents and compliance checks?
What types of documents or certifications are required before starting work on site?

Who is responsible for managing and verifying site-related documents and compliance checks?
What types of documents or certifications are required before starting work on site?

Technology Usage & Accessibility

How frequently do you use a mobile phone or digital tools while working on site?
What challenges do you face when using a mobile device on site, particularly while wearing gloves or safety equipment?

How frequently do you use a mobile phone or digital tools while working on site?
What challenges do you face when using a mobile device on site, particularly while wearing gloves or safety equipment?

Outcome

Manual process

Bricklayer records 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.

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.

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 processing is too long

Manual nature of the calculation, and also the calculation of CIS and getting UTRs can be painful.

Project goals

Streamline admin work

Streamline the AMBC admin work 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 personas

Three user personas were created for Admin, Supervisor, and Subcontractor/Bricklayer to ensure user-centric decision-making throughout the project by understanding their goals and painpoints. Below is an example of Subcontractor/Bricklayer.

James Dudson

Subcontractor/Bricklayer

Age : 28

Goals

Maintain a clear digital record of all work completed on-site, ensuring nothing is missed or lost in manual reporting.
Track and update progress of lifts completed by both himself and his team in a structured and easy-to-access format.
Enable quick updates in real time, reducing dependency on paperwork or end-of-day reporting.

Pain Points

Lack of a centralized system to track lift progress, leading to confusion between team members and missed updates.
Time-consuming reporting process, especially when updates are only recorded at the end of the day or week.
Challenges in verifying completed work when documentation is inconsistent or incomplete.

Project scope

User journey mapping

Three user journeys were created for three distinct user roles: Admin, Supervisor, and Subcontractor/Bricklayer. Below is an example of the user journey developed for the Subcontractor/Bricklayer role.

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.

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.

Jacob accepts job & share all the site details with gang members

Design phase

After aligning with the client on the project scope, key features, and business requirements, and ensuring all necessary insights had been gathered through the discovery phase, the project moved into the design phase to begin translating requirements into user-focused solutions.

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.

Mapping key features

Bricklayers/Subcontractors (Mobile App)

Profile creation

Ability to create and add gang members

Job 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.

Job 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

Job creation

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)

User flows

Based on the defined user personas and user journeys, detailed user flows were created to map the end-to-end experience for each user type. These flows covered key features and interactions, from onboarding through to task completion, while helping identify blockers, friction points, and opportunities for usability improvements.

Wireframing & testing

The design phase began with creating wireframes and exploring multiple solution approaches to address the identified user and business needs. Collaborative sessions with developers were conducted to ensure all proposed features were technically feasible and achievable within the project scope. Continuous feedback from the client was incorporated throughout the process, and iterative design changes were made to align the solution with evolving requirements and expectations.

Visual design & branding

A design system was created using one primary, two secondary, and three neutral colours to ensure visual consistency across the platform. Poppins was selected as the primary typeface for its clean appearance and strong legibility. Core UI components including headers, tiles, footers, buttons, and icons were also designed to maintain consistency and scalability.

These elements were then applied to the low-fidelity wireframes to develop the final high-fidelity designs.

Components Library

High fidelity designs

Following successful approval of the wireframes and colour palette, the project progressed into the high-fidelity design phase.

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.

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.

Usability testing & outcome

Internal QA testing

Usabilitiy testing was conducted with Admin, Subcontractors and Supervisor to validate designs.

The onboarding process was quicker and more efficient compared to the traditional process.
Users were able to receive notifications easily whenever a new job was posted or allocated.
Users provided positive feedback regarding the overall user interface and visual design.
The platform improved communication and visibility of task updates for users.

Usabilitiy testing was conducted with Admin, Subcontractors and Supervisor to validate designs.

The onboarding process was quicker and more efficient compared to the traditional process.
Users were able to receive notifications easily whenever a new job was posted or allocated.
Users provided positive feedback regarding the overall user interface and visual design.
The platform improved communication and visibility of task updates for users.

Outcome

Reduced manual administrative workload by digitising onboarding, compliance tracking, and approval workflows by 70%
Simplified the onboarding process 50% more faster for bricklayers by centralising ID checks, CSCS verification, and accreditation management.
Improved transparency and accuracy within the payment and sign-off process through structured milestone tracking (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% completion stages).
The solution helped the client onboard multiple construction companies to adopt and integrate the platform into their workflows.

Reduced manual administrative workload by digitising onboarding, compliance tracking, and approval workflows by 70%
Simplified the onboarding process 50% more faster for bricklayers by centralising ID checks, CSCS verification, and accreditation management.
Improved transparency and accuracy within the payment and sign-off process through structured milestone tracking (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% completion stages).
The solution helped the client onboard multiple construction companies to adopt and integrate the platform into their workflows.

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Want to see ideas come alive?

Get in touch and let's build something people can't ignore.

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Want to see ideas come alive?

Get in touch and let's build something people can't ignore.

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