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CREATE A BETTER EXPERIENCE FOR PROFESSIONALS

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CONTEXT

Over the summer of 2021, I worked as a UX Design Intern at Autodesk. I planned and executed mixed-method generative research such as user interviews, subject matter experts interviews, and surveys to investigate the implementation of an ML-based project. I also designed a feature within conducting usability testing, holding design reviews, and attending scrum and UX meetings.


Due to confidentiality reasons, I cannot present the whole visuals or elaborate further on how the product works. If you are interested in learning more about this project, feel free to contact me!

Role: UX Design Intern

Methods & Tool:  Interview, Competitive Analysis, Sketch & Principle

Timeline: 3 months,  June – September 2021

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Project Context
Discovery
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Red warning point

Warning text

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DISCOVERY

Understanding the PRODUCT

Civil 3D is a creative software used by civil engineer and architect professionals to plan, design and manage civil engineering projects. It supports Building Information Modeling workflows.  Grading Optimization is a feature embedding in Civil 3D that uses state-of-the-art optimization algorithms to solve constraints placed by the user in the form of grading and drainage elements. It is based on deterministic algorithms that can provide the best solution for your design constraints and objectives on a surface, and if there is no definite solution, will always provide the best approximation.

The current violation view provides some visual feedback on where triangles violate maximum slope constraints, minimum required drainage slope, and elevation offset violations.  The current violation view shows the following:

Shown in a light grey when they satisfy the constraints. If they violate the constraint, they are shown in red. 

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Elevation Offsets

If a maximum slope is violated the triangle is colored dark red. If it is not violated, it is transparent. If both slope constraints are violated, the maximum slope and the minimum directed slope, the maximum violation is shown only. 

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Maximum Slope

If a minimum slope is violated, the triangle is colored light red. If it is not violated, it is transparent. If both slope constraints are violated, the maximum slope and the minimum directed slope, the maximum violation is shown only.

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Minimum Directed Slope

Understanding the USERS

Civil 3D's users are mainly civil/architect professionals; we can roughly divide them into three categories:

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Engineers

In charge of preliminary grading based on initial layouts of land, presents customers with options and visualization result

In charge of detail grading that is based on the detail design of criteria such as ADA, parking, curb returning, Balance earth volume and estimate cost

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Technical Specialist

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 Design Contractor

In charge of quality assurance , including exam design such as annotations

Understanding the CONETXT

To understand when and where users would use our products, it is necessary to understand the complete building process. Therefore, we created a stakeholder map to help our team better understand the context.

= Will use the product and feature

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Understanding the PROBLEM

The goal of users using grading optimization is to optimize their design by providing sufficient information.

How might we present information that is clear and straightforward to users?

Insights
INSIGHTS

1

Violation view only indicates whether a slope is violating the constraints or not, but missing  info on how it's violating the constraints

The current design contains two violations: Maximum slope and minimum drainage slope and direction. However, it does not show users as how the slope violates the constraints, leaving users no way to put this data into case.

2

Hydrology view shows the ideal intention of direction vectors, but fail to disclose the result of optimization

From our previous user research, some users don't know how to deal with the violation. However, it was provided in the tooltips named "Learn More". The signifier to find out the result of the optimization is not sufficient enough.

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SOLUTION

Use color scale to distinguish the degree of constraint violation

We decided to use different colors to send users massage. Other colors are assigned based on two factors:

  • What type of violation it is: more than the max slope or less than the min slope

  • How much it has violated

Max Slope

Min Drain Slope

Provide important information directly rather than hide it in the "learn more" button 

To help users find the optimized results more efficiently, we decided to change the wording of the current portal. For users who have used this feature before, they can easily find it because the only change is the wording. It will also be easy for new users, as they' ll easily notice the portal and understand what it does.

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Present  more info

Solution
DESIGN ITERATION

Evaluate the mid-fidelity prototypes

We narrowed down on potential ideas and started prototyping based on the initial thoughts.

We recruited a total of 6 design experts to evaluate the design and also recruited three users to review the design


Our goals for the testing were to:
1. Find out the most effective design for violation
2. Test discoverability and usability of new interaction flow

Key Finding: Same color scheme would imply the same thing even in  different contexts

Initially, we chose Red to represent the extent of violation because red would be a visual reminder as a "warning." Because initially, the lowest constraint and the highest constraint do not appear simultaneously (the user can see the specific type of violation by selecting it), we used red to show both the violations. However, we found that users could not easily distinguish whether they are viewing the highest or the lowest offense, especially when they are not particularly focused.

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Max slope violation

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Min slope violation

Solution: Use the different color schemes to represent two types of violation 

We decide to use Red to represent the max slope violation and Yellow to represent the min slope violation. The reason for using yellow is that yellow is also a color that registers as a warning for most people. Besides, it diverges from red to help users effortlessly distinguish different violation modes. 

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Max slope violation

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Min slope violation

2

Key Finding: More choices can lead to a worse user experience

Initially, we provide choices for users to show or hide the information to avoid information overload. Still, some users suggested they are not willing to make much effort. This made us reconsider the presentation of the information. We decided to show all the relevant information at once.

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1

Design Iteration
FINAL DESIGN

For the final design, I combined all the user research as the solution: presenting max, min slope violations at once and using different colors to differentiate min and max violations. In addition,  red warning points were added to signify the violation with the determined criteria.

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Color scales

Red warning point

Warning text

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Reflection
REFLECTION
Design is a learning process

From the weekly critiques and communication, I realized that design is a learning process in that designers exchange experience and learn from each other. It's not always a strict "senior vs. junior" or "teacher vs student" relationship.

Be proactive and active

In Autodesk's work culture, people don't push you to do anything, but they are always there to help you. So if one wants to go for personal progress, one must take the initiative to drill down on every project. The company also provides a wealth of learning resources, but one also has to take the initiative to ask questions and to allocate such resource. In addition, I realized that always planning ahead is also essential in teamwork. It is also important to note that a project often requires multiple meetings, so working hours are sometimes uncertain. Working ahead, being flexible with your design, and learning to cope with conflicts that arise between work and meeting times are crucial.

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Build with  💕   by Sonia Song 

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