Hayward Lumber
Understanding and designing for the needs of architects during the construction process.
Role
User Researcher
When I Did It
Nov. 2022 - Dec. 2022
Team Members
Katrina Liou, Hannah Constandse, Paiton Gleeson
What I Did
Needfinding, User Research, Experience Design
Tools
User Interviews, Figma, Adobe Photoshop
Introduction
Working with Hayward Lumber, a family-owned Bay Area lumberyard and construction material supplier, the team and I researched how Hayward can help address the needs of architects in the construction process. From our research, we proposed solutions for Hayward to implement.
Interviews
We had the privilege of meeting 12 architects from 5 different firms and the Stanford architectural department. These architects include those who helped design Apple Campus and the d.school, residential architects, commercial architects, plus the Director of the Stanford Architecture Program. From these interviews, we aimed to understand the architects’ POV of the construction and design process.
Architects are most involved in steps 1 through 6. However, step 7, Construction Administration, typically takes the longest to complete. It makes up the majority of the entire process.
Additionally, architects typically don’t directly interact with the sub-contractors who actually build their designs.
We examined our interviews between the lines to dig deeper into what the architects are actually saying. One interviewee, Matt, an ex-architect, spent most of his time telling us about his perception of contractor. He said:
““For the past 10 years, I’ve been trying to forget that I was ever an architect… the relationship with the contractor is always tense.””
Findings
When asked about the people they work with, architects’ first response is to express their frustration about contractors, and describe their relationships with them as “contentious,” “unpleasant,” and “tension-filled.”
For our next finding, we examined an architect’s time distribution during the design process.
Only 20% of their time is spent actually designing the concept, but up to 50% of their time can be spent on contractor administration and construction when the project is handed off to the contractors.
This led to our second finding.
“I can’t have a rational relationship with someone that decides that my mistakes are a basis for their profit.”
90% of interviewees expressed their frustration with working with contractors during the design process. These stories led to our first key finding:
Finding 1
Architects describe their job as “designing a vision,” “creative work,” innovation, and “making something beautiful for people to inhabit a space,” but based on the breakdown of their schedule, the majority of their work hours on a project are spent ensuring the contractors’ design substitutions align with their initial drawings.
“It’s like babies, we give birth to this thing. [Handing off the project] is like throwing our baby to the wolves.”
Finding 2
Insights
The tension between architects and contractors can be attributed to two reasons:
Architects don’t fully trust contractors to effectively execute the project.
Architects blame contractors for their least favorite part of the job.
The relationship between architects and contractors can be compared to that of parents and babysitters to demonstrate the lack of trust.
To architects, a.k.a the parents, the project is their child and they receive help from their “family members.” These family members are the structural engineers, interior designers, and other consultants who work with the architects during the initial design phases.
However, architects view contractors like babysitters because there isn’t complete trust between the two. Contractors are “outside of the family.” Because the contractors are “not in the family,” there is a lack of trust even though the contractors have a lot of influence on the child. Architects must bring contractors into the family, creating trust between the two and allowing both contractors and architects to raise “the child” together.
Needs
From there, we identified the architect’s top four needs:
Need to spend time doing what they love
Need to feel confident about + ownership over their designs
Need to choose products that sub-contractors already use
Need to compare sub-contractors’ substitutions to specifications efficiently
These needs are all in service of reducing the tension between architects and contractors. If Hayward can be the source of alleviating this tension, both architects and sub-contractors will turn to Hayward’s products.
Design Principles
We identified 3 design principles that are necessary to design an effective solution for architects. These principles are not the solution, but what the solution should satisfy.
Create substitution recommendations to help architects replace an unavailable material that subcontractors want to catalyze and streamline the material-choosing process.
Map similar materials to one another to help architects choose something that fits their overarching design to help maintain the architect’s feeling of ownership over their design.
Catalog the most popular Hayward materials and products used by subcontractors to help prevent frustrating design substitutions later in the process.
These design principles will help reduce the tension between Architects and contractors, which will, in turn, lead to a more efficient construction administration process.
Solutions
The Hayward Catalog
We proposed 2 solutions to Hayward Lumber. These solutions can help Hayward by increasing their brand loyalty and customer base, proving that they’re a competitive brand, and serving all their stakeholders (like architects), even when they aren’t the direct customers.
Our first solution is the Hayward Catalog, a print or digital catalog that Hayward would provide to architects to highlight their best-selling products purchased by contractors. In the digital version, each Hayward product will also have a CAD file of the models or surface finishes to help architects visualize and validate those products in their Building Information Modeling process. This solution targets the core need that architects need to choose products that subcontractors already use.
The catalog will help architects know what products and materials subcontractors buy, which reduces the likelihood of having to go through the substitution process. This preventative solution will be implemented in the beginning of the design process when architects are making design specifications.
The Hayward Toolbox
Our second solution is the Hayward Toolbox, an extension to Hayward’s website for Architects to compare specifications to Hayward’s products. This solution addresses their core need of having to compare substitutions to specifications efficiently.
