Q3 2025
Q2 2025
Q1 2025
Q4 2024
Q3 2024
Q2 2024
Q1 2024
Q4 2023
Search for a command to run...
Research by Ian Wyosnick
This document synthesizes insights from 12 research interviews with Simpson Strong-Tie teams across UX, Product, and Development. The purpose is to uncover how customers currently communicate, identify pain points and desired improvements, and evaluate opportunities for an in-tool commenting and notification system.
Across all interviews, teams described a common pattern: communication in Simpson tools is highly fragmented, manual, and often happens outside the product experience. Most customers rely on email, Teams, SMS, and printouts to share status updates, request help, or clarify issues. While the use cases for in-tool commenting, tagging, and notifications vary by product, virtually every team identified unmet needs for visibility, collaboration, or traceability. Customers seek asynchronous, contextual communication tied to specific documents, design elements, or production tasks, (e.g. similar to experiences in tools like Figma or Jira) or even custom-built internal systems. At the same time, concerns about notification overload, usability, and information visibility (internal vs external) must be addressed thoughtfully to ensure adoption.
More detail on the findings informing these takeaways can be found below.
Customers aren't interested in another platform like Teams or Slack. Rather, they desire embedding traceable, structured communication into the places people already work with controls to match the sensitivity of the data and flexibility to match the diversity of Simpson's tools and customers.
All interviews were conducted by Abby Burkhalter and Nixa Espinola in November of 2024.
| Interviewee | Summary Doc |
|---|---|
| Cesar Suarez (Director PM) | Interview Summary |
| Director | Interview Summary |
| Cornerstone | Interview Summary |
| Truss Studio Design + Cloud Services | Interview Summary |
| Producer | Interview Summary |
| Spec Tools | Interview Summary |
| OLS | Interview Summary |
| Batching | Interview Summary |
| Pipeline LBM | Interview Summary |
| Truss Studio Layout | Interview Summary |
| Pipeline | Interview Summary |
| Reporting | Interview Summary |
Across nearly every tool, notes are tracked manually in Word, Notepad, Trello, or even on paper. In most cases, these notes are not tied to the project context within the software.
"They need to be kept somewhere. And to keep them, like, with the drawing, with the project would be really useful." — Marc Marcoux, Truss Studio Layout Team
"Our customers used to leave a lot of notes... it's very asynchronous... remind myself later what the customer told me." — Eric Borgerding, Director Team
"People are hollering back and forth or having to walk between equipment..." — Brian Gunn, Producer Team
Email is nearly universal. Many teams also rely on Teams, Slack, Trello, or Smartsheet—none of which are integrated into Simpson tools. This causes communication loss and extra work.
"They have to leave Pipeline to go to an email, to type out that email, screenshot everything, and send it." — Bill English, Pipeline Team
"They already use... Teams or some ability." — Jill Meems, Cornerstone Team
"We have automation in [Smartsheet] to send us an email... categorized for all the different apps we support." — Russ Anderson, Spec Tools
Teams share project statuses, design handoffs, task ownership, production anomalies, and material preferences. Many comments are tied to specific deliverables like PDFs, truss drawings, or BOMs.
"Sharing the design... sharing the estimate... and sharing the BOM report." — Latha Anand, OLS Team
"Engineer... will send it back with comments as to why it did not pass." — Daniel Jones, Director Team
"What kind of material is the countertop for the island?" — Matt Shacklett, Pipeline LBM Team
Most motivation comes from the need to coordinate across roles or shifts, clarify assumptions, or capture information for later. However, adoption is tied directly to ease of use.
"If we made it simple for them, they would come." — Daniel Jones, Director Team
"Some kind of notice between... shifts... like a little message board feature." — Brian Gunn, Producer Team
"Depends on how easy it is for the user to utilize whether that they'll find that beneficial or not." — Jill Meems, Cornerstone Team
While many teams didn't explicitly discuss this, the need for internal vs external visibility came up in several interviews, particularly in Takeoff and Pipeline.
"There would have to be a differentiation between what's a note... okay being on the plans for external people... versus internal communication." — Matt Shacklett, Pipeline LBM Team
"The user that gets assigned will not get the option to... check me out unless has the permission." — Cesar Suarez, Director
The biggest pain point was lack of visibility and traceability. Projects become a "black box" after handoff. Tools don't support shared comments, notifications, or historical review.
"Everything is silent, so they don't know what's happening... That is the missing link." — Cesar Suarez, Director
"It just seems like a black box... I send a plan off and then it's a black box until someday it comes back to me." — Matt Shacklett, Pipeline LBM Team
Customers want to track decisions: why a design failed, when a task was done, or what a customer requested. Some teams already archive this manually (e.g., in Smartsheet or Outlook).
"You do have a project that was closed one year ago... and they need to review why those decisions were making." — Cesar Suarez, Director
"Some of these things have three hundred and forty four items... it's not like there's a ton, but it's not small either." — Russ Anderson, Spec Tools
Primarily to explain decisions, validate handoffs, or follow up on customer questions. Production and estimating teams also use history to support QA and dispute resolution.
"That way, if somebody says like, hey. You guys didn't build this truss..." — T.J. Krol, Producer Team
Teams consistently referenced tools like Jira, Figma, and Bluebeam. They want click-to-comment, tagging, and notifications, ideally scoped to a specific job, drawing, or document.
"Like Jira, has a comment box on the page." — Daniel Jones, Director Team
"In Figma, you can tap somewhere on the screen and it'll add a comment right where you want it to be." — Brett Cipperly, Reporting Team
"If we allow the customers to tag a particular design element, that will also be valued." — Latha Anand, OLS Team
Concerns include notification overload, complexity, and the risk of exposing internal messages to customers. Many requested digest options or user-controlled settings.
"Don't want to turn Director into a noise box." — Eric Borgerding, Director Team
"Without having some sort of visual or intentional cue... it can become difficult... 'oops, is that note gonna be out?'" — Matt Shacklett, Pipeline LBM Team
"It should be as noisy as someone wants it... others may want it quiet." — Brett Cipperly, Reporting Team
While Procore, MiTek, and Alpine were not always mentioned by name, customers referenced key features found in tools like:
"They made their own called Trespass. It had interuser chat... directly integrated into the system." — Eric Borgerding, Director Team
"MiTek... pop-up on the saw... real time... recut requested." — Chris Calabrese, Producer Team
These references point to a shared expectation: Simpson's tools need to support structured, embedded collaboration, without introducing unnecessary complexity.
Based on the full synthesis of 12 interviews across Simpson Strong-Tie teams, here are detailed recommendations to guide design and product development of communication, commenting, and notification features.