Bream
OVERVIEW
Bream serves as one stop solution for users to design their dream projects and for designers to show their work. Users can find designers as per their style, experience and reviews to hire them for next architectural project.
Challenges
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There are many sites to find graphic or UX-UI designers. However, options to find architectural designers are very limited.

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Users have to visit individual website of architecture firms and may get varying degrees of information.

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There aren't many options to look up unbiased reviews or customer testimonials for architectural design firms.
Project Details
Solution
'Bream'- a responsive web and mobile application was designed to help users looking for spatial designers (architects, interior designers, etc.) and for designers to show their projects.
My Role
Information Architecture, UX-UI Designer, AR
Client
Fictional Company
Tools
Adobe XD, Figma, Blender, Vectary 3D
Deliverables
Interviews; Pen & paper prototype; Information Architecture; Interaction Design; High-fi prototype
Timeline
May 2019 - Aug 2019
Refined in Sep 2020
Key Features
1. Find Inspirational Projects
Users can look up projects- Architectural or interior as per location, style, price range and reviews. They can also like and save a project to a particular collection and access it for reference.
2. Find Architectural & Interior Designers
Users can find designers- Architectural or interior as per their location, style, budget and reviews. They can also ‘Request a Quote’ from the designers they choose and then decide if to hire.
3. Shop for Products created by designers and see them in AR
Users can browse and buy furniture and products created by designers. Bream uses AR technology to help users visualize the products they are interested in their room and make an informed decision.
My Approach
Research
User Interview
Competitive Analysis
Strategy
User Persona
Information Architecture
User Task Flows
Design
Low-fidelity Sketches
Visual System
High-fidelity Prototype
Validate
High-fidelity Wireframe
Affinity Map
RESEARCH
User Interviews
I interviewed 4 users and 2 designers for this project. Users were asked to imagine a situation that they needed architectural and interior designers for their future home/office.
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All users wanted a designer that would reflect their style.
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2 Users had an opinion that they usually consult with the architects from their contacts, but would like to have option of consulting other designers who can help them design as per their choice.
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2 Users also wanted an option to get the interiors and furniture custom designed so that they could have 'one of a kind' interior style.
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The designers felt that it was very difficult to find work in general. Most of the project pipeline was built by friends/family verbal reference and so many times they had to work at discounted rates.
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Whenever the designers tried to find work online, they were not satisfied with the nature/ amount of work as it tended to be remote many times.
Finding the right Architect for the job is tricky. We had hired one recommended by our friend and still our experience was the worst!
Finding work online is difficult. All my skills and capabilities as an Architect are reduced to AutoCAD drafting there.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis was further crucial to understand if the challenges faced by users and designers are addressed. The other products partially addressed the challenges faced by people. They also revealed several effective patterns including the use of prominent search bars, providing numerous ways to filter for an item and pushing promoted content or sales to the home page.
Competitor Analysis findings:
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Only one app focused on all facets of Architecture- GoPillar but it catered to European market only and was less empathetic about designers.
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Houzz seemed a great option to find inspiration and designers but it supported Residential Architecture only.
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Majority apps seem to support freelancers rather than small agencies.
Looking at the competing products, I hoped to design a platform that supported the Architectural needs of users and business needs of designers equally and efficiently.
STRATEGY
Persona
I used the findings from user interviews and competitor analysis to inform personas further illustrating the successes and challenges faced by the target users and designers.
Further defining the Information
As the research portion of the project began to take shape, I had focus group discussion with the interviewee designers to help organize the design categories. I felt it was necessary as the product would be showing extensive data in form of projects and products.
To help block out my other screens, I created task flows for steps a user (customer) would go through in order to further define Information Architecture:
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Browse & Save Projects
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Find & Hire Designer
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Purchase Products
DESIGN
Low-fidelity Sketches
Based on the findings and flows, I sketched multiple options to design the UI of the product. I continued referring to the target audience, their needs and my goal to focus on how to improve the user experience compared to other products. After a few rounds of iterations I came to a good place with the solutions.
DESIGN
For the branding and appearance of Bream, I opted for a black-grey-white color palette with aqua & navy blue accents to give it a neutral look that pays attention to designers projects and products, but also catches users attention at call-to-action. The development of the logo largely consisted of different fonts for the word Bream and choosing a version that was more reflective of built-forms and city-scape.
High-fidelity Prototype
Moving forward with the process, I turned my Lo-Fi sketches into responsive Hi-Fi prototypes.
iPad Pro 11'' Prototype
iPhone 8 Prototype
VALIDATION
Iterations, Next Steps and Reflection
The prototype was tested on users in the target demographic and the results were organized on an affinity map.
The next steps for BREAM will be to make changes based on the feedback from users.
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As you can see from the affinity map, users mostly liked how BREAM has been designed. Although a few alterations are suggested. All the users agreed that tool-tip feature could help streamline the task flow. Would work on including tips for the icons.
Another major confusion was about the sub-category icons that emerge on home page. Users felt that there isn't a clear demarcation for the selected category and its sub-categories. So for next iteration, I have decided to demarcate the subcategories in a separate bounding box with shadow so as to clearly mark the category-subcategories pairing.
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Reflections
This project was the first UX project that I ever worked on. It was convenient to start working as my previous background as an Architect helped, but was challenging later. I learned all about UX Design, how to operate under constraints, address challenges, get feedback and take it positively. The consideration that it was an international company made me consider color, typography and even the iconography I was choosing to make sure that I was creating a truly universal product.