This overview provides an executive summary of Builterra, an app prototype designed to address the challenges associated with accessing, maintaining, and informing users of their building systems. Builterra strives to provide a comprehensive solution for engineers, vendors, and tenants/visitors by offering real-time information and assistance related to building systems and emergencies. By streamlining access to critical information and enhancing user navigation, Builterra aims to improve building management efficiency in a modern tech design that strays from the 3-ring binders and rolls of paper stored in offices and basements. This overview will provide an in depth look at the design process, a look at our interface design and features for the Builterra app, user results, and moving forward with our design.
In the early stages of designing, we figured that our most prominent challenge was what do you do when there’s a problem, and how do you convey that information the fastest. Instead of engineers and specialists having to arrive to see what the issue is with misconstrued information, we designed a way to get a general overview of the severity and description of the problem and what tools/contacts are needed to succeed.
In making our prototype, we went through the UX Design Process, which encompasses the stages of defining the problem, ideating, designing, prototyping, evaluating, and iterating the process.
We began our process by completing ideation reflections, in which our group got out any idea that we had towards the problem of: What to do when there is a leak in a building?
Our answers skewed from developing an app with real-time notifications to fixing the leak with duct tape. Any idea was covered. From developing a type of AI to detect when theres a problem located with the water fixtures to buying a live in plumber, we considered all options. From there, we took out unreasonable and unrealistic ideas, and we're left with the most reasonable, achievable, and most efficient ideas.
