After selecting a major you love and being told you’ll never work a day in your life because that field isn’t hiring, you may decide on an engineering degree. Once you tell your friends and family they might have these responses: • Ooooh you must be so smart • It’s gonna be so easy for you to find a job when you leave college • Smartypants • Super-human • You’ve always been good at math • Your gonna grow up and build robots That’s what they see on the outside. But little do they know, the insider’s world is a whole different ballgame. Welcome to Autodesk Design Academy!
AUTODESK
Autodesk
MY ROLE
I joined the team to led the UX/UI for Autodesk Design Academy across web and mobile in creating a learning management system and the evolution of the Design Academy website. Autodesk upholds infamously high standards for the work it produces both externally for customers and internally for team members to consume. This has created a culture which seeks to earn trust through accountability, diving deep into the details and inviting others to scrutinize work. I partnered with a product manager, a content and a social designer.
PERSONAS
The website was created originally with a focus on educators. The company is shifting the focus to secondary education students globally with a precise focus on education. With this new benefit we hoped to create deeper relationships with students and we envisioned the future of Autodesk Design Academy to be deeply personalized to their discipline. Each student type has unique needs, resources, evaluation criteria, implementation concerns and victory conditions. After analyzing student data collections and attributes I developed the personas.
USER JOURNEY
The discovery phase was a high‐intensity effort that allowed us to begin research into user needs, behaviours and pain‐points. Supplemental learning content – Enhance student interest – Personal curiosity or interest – Challenge gifted students – Need support on “how-to” do something – Contest / extra- curricular activity – Learning something new – Socialization
Evaluation of classes A student uses a mental checklist of criteria to determine if they will use the classes they found; each student will have their own criteria, but there are common themes
Implementation Students take steps to align the supplemental learning content to fit their skill set objectives
Reflect Students analyze the pros and cons of the experience they had with the supplemental learning content and determine next steps
USER ENGAGEMENT
The student is aware of potential connections between their discipline and the tools Autodesk Design Academy offers
How can we connect students? How can we help educate students? How can we set them up for new opportunities? How can we reward our tops contributors and students?
DISCOVERY
I spent the first month taking a holistic understanding of the websites features to define the user flow chart. For each feature phase, I went through cycles of requirements, consensus, approvals, detailed specs and handoffs. In the early stages I focussed only on representing the highest risk areas of the design. Later phases allowed me to focus on micro‐interactions.
LMS
My first design challenge was to propose how we would design the LMS. To differentiate ourselves in an already mature and competitive market, we needed to define and then prioritize the features that we would start to develop
Course listing page Author / Software (s) Discipline User Reviews / Badge Course title Badge Lesson(s) Quiz / Time Enrollment / Comment / Likes
COURSE PAGE
The course page section features include: – Preview first lesson – Enroll – View course details – Author, Software, Discipline, Level, Enrollments – Self pace learning – View and contribute comment – View and contribute review
COMMUNITY
– Join a group, leave a group – Start a group – admin – Join a conversation – Group feed: post in the group – View the group members – Share: Facebook or Twitter – Comment – Like
STUDENT EXPERTS
Autodesk Student Experts and Autodesk Student Ambassadors are active fans of Autodesk technology who are passionate about design and engineering. Experts connect with like-minded peers and lead others through activities and campus events. Expert status gives students access to numerous benefits—including opportunities to network with industry professionals and showcase skills that can improve career opportunities. Student Experts may also become Student Ambassadors and be eligible for invitations to exclusive Autodesk events, technical pilot/beta projects, and training workshops. – Content contributors – Certifications – Activities
NAVIGATION
