Product Design · B2B Construction Tech
From a task list to a field execution surface.
Redesigning Linarc’s Schedule Lookahead from a date-filtered list of tasks into a production-aware planning surface that field teams could actually run a week of construction from.
Role
Product Designer
Product
Linarc — Construction PM
Surface
Web (primary) + Mobile
Scope
End-to-end feature, v1
Shipped
Production, 2026
Overview
A short-horizon plan the whole crew can trust.
A lookahead is the 1–12 week window a general contractor uses to plan upcoming construction. In Linarc it existed already — but only as a filtered view of schedule tasks. It could tell you what was coming, not whether anyone had committed to it, how much work was planned each day, what was actually done, or what was standing in the way.
I designed the lookahead into an execution surface: a versioned lifecycle from draft to published, a general-contractor-to-subcontractor commitment handoff, daily planned-vs-actual quantities, readiness driven by real constraints, and a field path so foremen could log progress from their phones — all inside the visual language teams already knew from the master schedule.
Problem
The lookahead showed which tasks were coming — not whether anyone committed, what was planned per day, or what was blocking work. Teams ran the week off spreadsheets instead.
My role
Owned the interaction model and component system: two-pane layout, readiness chips, plan-vs-actual quantities, constraints, and the publish & commit flows.
Outcome
Shipped a versioned execution surface in v1, and drew a clear Phase 2 line so it landed coherent and on time.
The reframe
The old lookahead was a publication surface. My job was to make it an execution plan.
Before / after
The shift, on screen.
Before A filtered list of tasks — no commitment, quantities, or readiness.
After Commitment, daily plan-vs-actual, and constraint-driven readiness.
Key decisions
Four trade-offs that shaped the design.
Consistency vs. novelty
Reused the schedule's existing colors
Draft = red, Published = blue, In Progress = orange, inherited from the master schedule. One mental model for a task everywhere it appears — no relearning.
Signal vs. noise
One readiness chip, reasons one click away
Nine constraint types can't all shout in the grid. The chip consolidates them; the right pane holds the detail. Scannable at a glance, complete on demand.
Density vs. focus
A toggleable right pane, not a bottom drawer
A bottom panel crushes the grid where supers scan a full week of rows. The pane earns its width only when a task is selected.
Speed vs. safety
A publish confirmation that names its side effect
Publishing can silently publish draft tasks into the master schedule — and it's irreversible. The decision is made, not discovered.
Detail Constraints resolve into one readiness signal.
Safety The irreversible side effect, named before it happens.
Component system
Built as a reusable kit, not one-off screens.
Every state in the lookahead is assembled from a small set of components I designed in the Linarc design system — so readiness, quantities, commitment, and constraints look and behave identically across grid, right pane, calendar, and mobile. A sample of the kit:
Readiness chip
Schedule-state chip
Constraint list
Publish confirmation
The system
Versioned by design.
A published lookahead is a frozen snapshot; changes mean a new version. That let me build a delta view — so "what changed since last week?" is answered on screen, not in someone's head. In review, each subcontractor commits or realigns their own tasks while the GC keeps final authority.
Draft
GC builds
Review
SC commits
Published
Field snapshot
Expired
History kept
What I took from it
Familiarity is a feature
Inheriting a color language people already trusted beat a "better" one they'd have to relearn.
Make consequences visible
The best fix for a risky, irreversible action wasn't more steps — it was making sure it never happened by accident.
Scope is a design tool
A tight, coherent v1 that ships beats a full vision that stalls — and leaves room to learn first.
@crafted by Thani
Get in touch: thanigaivasan97@gmail.com