AUTODESK LEARNING EXPERIENCE

This project was a year-long senior capstone project at Olin College of Engineering in software design for Autodesk, Inc. The aim of the venture was to develop a new learning system for Autodesk Inventor, a mechanical CAD program used for many mechanical engineering and product development applications. 

As part of my senior capstone project, my team and I worked with Autodesk's Education Group to rethink the way self-paced learning can be integrated into a software product like Autodesk Inventor. While the scope of this project eventually grew to encompass multiple products, the roots of the project were in improving the learning experience in Inventor. Autodesk Inventor is a 3D CAD software tool used in many product design contexts, with a wide range of expertise and goals within its diverse customer base. Up to that point, self-paced learning had been driven through a set of tutorials delivered with each product. Autodesk was interested in investigating alternatives to text-based tutorials, as well as ways of categorizing or thinking about the overall Autodesk Inventor learning experience.

During the project, my team and I explored the existing tutorial landscape in both professional software and consumer video games, conducted user interviews, synthesized insights, generated numerous ideas, and prototyped and refined our most promising ones.  Additionally, we developed a "deck of cards" that covered a variety of key concepts that we developed over the course of the project.  This unique design methodology allowed us to rapidly ideate, as well as functioned as a system for us to judge the ideas that we came up with.  Following the completion of the senior capstone portion of the project, I joined Autodesk as the Sustainability Education Fellow. Part of my work over the course of my fellowship involved further developing our design concepts for future implementation in Autodesk products. This was eventually taken up by a team of over half a dozen people, was implemented across Autodesk’s full suite of professional design software and led to the development of the Autodesk Knowledge Network.

Enhancing the learning experience for all of Autodesk Inventor's users in a way that can easily scale with expertise, design context, and a variety of other factors would improve the overall experience of designing with Autodesk Inventor. To accomplish this interdisciplinary design challenge, we leveraged our background in product design and development, CAD design, cognitive science, systems design, business opportunity assessment, and pedagogical engagement models.