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NDA — shown with discretion. Brand elements blurred or omitted. Delivered as subsidiary contractor in collaboration with Feature Works / P3 Group.

Case Study · 2021

Terabase · Solar Energy · Field Application

Solar Farm
QC Inspector

A tablet-first field tool for solar construction QC — live site maps, module-level inspection, defect logging, and offline-first architecture for remote sites with no connectivity.

Role

Design Lead & Product Management

Duration

7 Months

Platform

iPad · Android Tablet

Industry

Solar Energy

Deliverables

Field Research · IA · Full UI System · Prototype · Dev Handoff

400+

Daily QC notes

Connectivity required

User roles supported

01 — The Problem

Construction sites have no room for bad UX

QC workers on solar farms faced rough outdoor conditions — heat, humidity, heavy body gear impeding interaction, and an estimated 400+ daily QC notes to capture. The existing process was paper-based, error-prone, and produced no spatial record of where defects occurred.

Four distinct user roles — QC EPC, Foreman, Owner, Super Admin — each needed different views and permissions on the same underlying data. The IA had to serve all four without a separate product per role.

Hostile environment

Direct sun, heat, humidity, and heavy protective gear demanded glove-compatible 48px+ touch targets and high-contrast UI readable in full daylight.

Scale of QC notes

400+ daily observations per crew needed to be captured without friction — photo, location, defect type, and severity in under 30 seconds per entry.

Zero connectivity

Remote desert sites had no cellular or Wi-Fi. The app needed full offline capability with reliable sync when the crew returned to a connected zone.

Four user roles

QC EPC, Foreman, Owner, and Super Admin each needed role-appropriate data access and actions — managed through a single unified IA.

02 — Approach

Sprint-based discovery, field-verified

Week one was spent on-site at an active Terabase construction location in California. The goal was to shadow QC workers doing their actual job — not in an office, not in a workshop. Paper forms, sun glare, gloves, and the pace of an active construction site.

The five-day sprint method (Knapp, GV) was used to go from raw field notes to a testable prototype in the same week as the site visit. Key insight from testing: workers didn't want a map view of the farm — they wanted to know exactly which row and which panel to walk to. Spatial hierarchy beats spatial display.

WBS navigation

Work Breakdown Structure used as the primary navigation model — Site → Block → Row → Module. Mirrors how crews are already organised on the ground.

Offline-first sync

All observations written to local storage with conflict-free merge on reconnect. Workers never wait for a network response.

Photo + location capture

Camera integration with automatic GPS tagging. Defect photos are geo-pinned to the module, not just the note — spatial record as a side effect of the observation flow.

Role-based dashboards

Same data, four views. Foreman sees crew progress. Owner sees completion rate. QC EPC logs and resolves. Super Admin manages the project configuration.

03 — The Designs

terabase.energy/qc-inspector/wireflow

UX Deliverables — QC Inspector Wireflow

Full wireflow covering the module selection, inspection, and observation-raising flows. Designed as a reference artefact for engineering handoff and stakeholder sign-off.

terabase.energy/qc/wbs-selection

WBS Module Selection

Inspectors select the active construction zone from a hierarchical work-breakdown structure. Designed for one-handed use in field conditions.

terabase.energy/qc/block-view

Block Card View

Overview of all blocks within a selected zone — each card showing completion status and any open observations at a glance.

terabase.energy/qc-inspector/prototype

Working Version — QC Inspector UI

High-fidelity working prototype used for usability testing with field engineers at an active Terabase construction site.

terabase.energy/qc/new-observation

Raise New Observation

The core QC action: logging a defect against a specific module. Photo capture, defect type, severity, and location captured in a structured form designed for speed.

terabase.energy/qc/observation-audit

Populated Observation — Audit Record

A completed observation as it appears in the audit log — with all required fields, photo evidence, and resolution status visible for QA review.

03b — Lighthouse Platform

The QC Inspector fed directly into Lighthouse — Terabase's spatial asset management platform. Lighthouse is documented as a separate case study.

04 — Outcomes

From paper to structured digital record

The tool replaced a paper-and-spreadsheet QC process with a structured digital audit trail. Every observation is geo-tagged, time-stamped, and associated with a specific module in the WBS hierarchy — searchable, exportable, and available to all four user roles within seconds of sync.

The offline-first architecture meant adoption was immediate — no dependency on site connectivity infrastructure that didn't exist. The sprint-tested interaction model reduced average observation time from ~4 minutes (paper form) to under 45 seconds in field testing.

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