Ingenious Build — raising UX maturity in a live product
Construction Management SaaS
UX/UI Designer
2021 - 2022
Construction management platform
the context
The problem
Construction project management runs on fragmented tools — spreadsheets, email threads, separate apps for budgets, documents and communication. For architects, engineers, general contractors and developers, the cost of that fragmentation is real: missed updates, version conflicts, disputes over change orders. Ingenious Build was built to replace all of it with a single platform covering everything from pre-construction to closeout.
The approach
The challenge wasn't just designing features — it was designing them for a product with real users already in the system, a low-maturity UX culture, and no established research practice. My approach was to introduce evidence-based design gradually, starting with quick wins that would prove the value of user research to stakeholders who weren't yet convinced.
my role
I joined mid-product — the design system had just launched, the team had recently moved from Sketch to Figma, and the platform was already live with real users. The design practice was still finding its footing: limited access to users, limited buy-in for research, and a product culture that was more feature-driven than user-driven.
Rather than pushing for a full process overhaul, I focused on making the value of UX visible through small, concrete wins — corridor tests that surfaced real problems, design decisions backed by data, and conversations that gradually shifted how product managers thought about user feedback.
the process
ui & ux design
New features typically started with an investor request or a roadmap priority. My job was to translate those inputs into designs that actually made sense for users — delivering mockups and prototypes to PMs and developers while making sure business goals and user needs didn't end up in opposition.
corridor testing
No budget for formal research, so I worked with what was available. Corridor testing sessions and Usability Hub surveys let us validate design decisions quickly and cheaply — and more importantly, gave us something concrete to bring to stakeholders when making the case for a more research-informed process.
design system contribution
I contributed to the design system by creating missing components, styles, and variants — calendar components, form patterns, and various UI elements needed for the growing feature set that hadn't been documented yet. Each addition was built to fit consistently within what was already there.
impact & results
Design process transformation
Introduced a more structured approach to requirements gathering and design iteration — moving the team away from assumption-driven decisions toward a process where user feedback had a clear place at the table.
Agile culture
Helped the team get more out of their Scrum process by pushing for tighter design-dev collaboration within sprints — less handoff, more shared ownership of what shipped.
UX education
Ran internal sessions with PMs and stakeholders to make the case for UX — not through theory, but through results from testing we'd already done. By the end, research was no longer something the team had to be convinced to do.
$37M Series A
The product is still growing — trusted by names like JLL, Cushman & Wakefield and Tishman Speyer, and backed by $37M in Series A funding. A good indicator that the direction was right.