2023 – 2026
Product
Building a PropTech SaaS platform to accelerate the construction life cycle
CLIENT
Podium, originally part of Lendlease Digital
SCOPE
Product strategy, design, delivery
ROLE
Senior Product Designer on the UX team
Founding Designer at Podium's incorporation
Overview
FREEPIK STOCK
The construction industry and development projects are complex. Multiple disciplines and experts work on fragmented processes and tools with long feedback loops and high stake decisions are made with incomplete information. Podium is a SaaS platform built to bring clarity to that complexity, enabling developers, architects and engineers to explore feasibility studies and work on a shared platform, reducing waste and costly misalignment.
How might we accelerate the construction life cycle through technology & design automation?
Introduction
As a Senior Product Designer on the UX team, my role spanned across multiple stages of the product lifecycle, from client discovery and strategy to actual execution. Instead of a single feature deep dive, this case study showcases a curated cross-section of my responsibilities, each paired with artefacts that demonstrates my thinking and contribution.
01
🕵🏻♀️ Discovery
As Podium seeks to address multiple gaps across the construction lifecycle, the user pain points are often nuanced and contextual. I led and supported discovery workshops with clients like JTC, Lendlease and Sunway to surface operational challenges, uncover inefficiencies and identify opportunities we can address.
REVISED PROJECT CREATION FLOW (MID-FI)
FOR VALIDATION WITH SUNWAY
PROPOSED E2E FLOW FOR SURBANA JURONG
02
📌 Definition & Prioritisation
There are constant feature requests from customers and internal teams responding to evolving business needs. I worked cross-functionally to clarify problem statements, define scope, and prioritise initiatives. This required viewing the product holistically across the end-to-end experience constantly, breaking briefs into staged maturities while ensuring each decision aligned with broader product impact.
MASTER END-TO-END FLOW
03
🌱 Frameworks & Scalable Patterns
Responsible for multiple 0→1 feature initiatives, I helped to establish foundational frameworks and product architecture that shaped how the platform evolved.
In parallel, I designed new interaction patterns in response to emerging needs, ensuring each solution addressed the immediate problem while integrating coherently into our pattern library. Balancing responsiveness with long-term structural thinking was essential to maintain scalability.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Some new patterns include
CONTEXTUAL TOOLBAR
COST SCHEDULES
04
☁️ Blue Sky Concepts
Blue sky concepts often emerge from subject-matter expert colleagues ideating off client's feedback. I helped translate these early-stage ideas into testable concepts, concrete enough for user validation and clear enough for stakeholder prioritisation.
This work predates the current wave of AI tools and relied on my personal synthesis and rapid prototyping.
Concept 1: Scenario Generation
Users can generate different site layout options based off on inputs and automatic calculations.
SCENARIO GENERATION PROTO
OPTIONS FOR TESTING
Concept 2: Handoff Report
Users can prepare handoff on Podium directly,
with linked components that auto updates from canvas
HANDOFF REPORT MOCKUP SCREENS
Concept 3: Gamification of Site Layout
Users go through site layout with more of a gamified twist,
using fun to ease the technicalities of use
GAMIFICATION
05
🎨 Constant Enhancements
Ongoing refinements were driven by both internal insights and customer feedback to continuosly elevate the product experience. The challenge was balancing speed with impact, keeping improvements lightweight for quick releases, while strategically bundling related changes into more meaningful upgrades.
Example 1: Improving the Podium plugin for Autodesk
The cognitive load on user for the original plugin was unnecessarily high
IMPROVED UI EASES LOAD WITH BETTER TYPE HIERARCHY AND METRICS
SNAPSHOTS OF THE UI EVOLUTION
Outcome
S$20.4 Million Funding led by Autodesk
Other investors include Schindler & Lendlease.
Read more in the news.
"Love the UI. It is a delight to use."
-Aditya Tiwari, Godrej group
Learnings
Applying UX Principles in an Unfamiliar Domain
Designing for the construction industry required navigating specialised terminology and complex technical workflows. I addressed this by partnering closely with subject matter experts to build domain fluency. Working from an outsider's perspective allowed me to apply core UX principles without any preconceived assumptions, questioning norms and uncovering opportunities for meaningful improvement.
Balancing Speed and Stewardship
A key learning from working in a fast-paced, lean startup was the discipline of prioritisation. The pressure to deliver immediate utility often overshadowed long-term experience, causing technical and design debt to accumulate. This reinforced my conviction that design must advocate for both short-term impact and long-term product health to ensure sustainable growth.