Procore Data & AI: Future Vision of Global Search
Details
Company: Procore
Year: 2021
Duration: 8 months
Role: Lead Product Designer
Team: Product Manager, Engineering Manager, Principal Designer
As a platform feature with wide-spread impact, besides the core team I also collaborated closely with:
- Product and Design leadership to align on strategy
- Engineering leadership to evaluate feasibility and identify dependencies
- Design Systems & Workflows designers
- Data Science (Machine Learning & AI) team
Background
Procore is a Construction Management platform that creates a central collaboration hub for owners, general contractors, specialty contractors, and other project collaborators across the entire project lifecycle. The Procore mission is to connect the global construction community on one, collaborative platform while delivering products tailored for each stakeholder.
In 2020 Procore pivoted its growth strategy to become a platform-first application. Global Search became one of the top priority initiatives for developing a robust set of Core Tools.
A visual map demonstrating where Global Search existed within the Procore ecosystem
The Challange
Procore evolved on a tool-by-tool basis, starting with Project Management, and then adding to Project Financials, Quality and Safety, and Preconstruction. The tools were very segmented making it hard to view relevant information without opening up multiple tabs and searching within the individual tools. We needed a way to allow users to search through thousands of data points across multiple tools and attachments to easily find what they are looking for.
Research
In order to come up with a vision for what the Procore Search could be, I started with in-depth generative research. We set out to answer the question “What can Procore Search do for you?” The discovery sessions were divided by Procore personas, and asked each group:
- What would you look for?
- What would you want to do once you found it?
- What device would you be using? (Desktop, Mobile, or Both)
Procore Personas and their Roles
Whiteboards from research sessions
Synthesis & Readout
I synthesized the recordings and whiteboard sessions and created a document. I used this research summary to create a readout deck with the findings to present to various stakeholders.
Select slides from the Research Readout Deck
Process
Based on the research findings as well as input from stakeholders and leadership, I came up with a list of features we wanted to include:
- Updating the UI to “Light Theme” to leverage Design System components
- Adding Suggested Results
- Robust cross-tool filtering
- Improve and standardize the metadata displayed
- Using Machine Learning to surface “Related Items”
- Previewing an object
- Incorporate Support Center results
- Introduce the ability to take actions from the search results page
- Having the ability to view what step in a workflow an object is in
- Make Search more prominent in the header to increase adoption
From there I created wireframes, user flows, visual explorations, and prototypes.
Wireframes: Information Architecture & Block UX
User Flows
Mapping of data relationships for the Knowledge Graph / Related Items
Final Design Direction
The final designs are based on creating a scalable framework in order to add new features and increase adoption by enhancing functionality.
Once the prototype was complete I used it to socialize our vision and ideas within our divisions’ Design, Product, and Engineering Leadership to get input and feedback. I also reached out to the discovery research participants to get their feedback as well.
Mockups
Figma Prototype
The 'Future of Procore Search' pitch deck
I put together a pitch deck based on the list of features we started out with, to communicate and share our vision and ideas, and to provide some context.
Select slides
The Future of Procore Search Prototype
Outcome & Next Steps
- I used the prototype to socialize our vision and ideas and get buy-in from various stakeholders in leadership. We got approval and additional headcount to build out this vision.
- I collaborated with my Product Manager to prioritize features and create a roadmap. We created a list of short, medium, and long-term goals we wanted to achieve in order to execute this vision.
- For the next steps, we teamed up with the Consolidated Document Management team to power their search in order to bring this Future Search vision to reality, which I walk through in the next case study