AutoDesk is a software company known for their computer visualization software for architects and engineers. Primarily operating their Toronto location as a research institute, AutoDesk approached our team to address their struggles with overlapping internal research projects.
While the organization has an in-house wiki-system to manage their static knowledge-base, our task was to develop interactive concepts that can take advantage of different communication channels to build live awareness of what is happening within the organization.
Richard Thomas – Foresight Strategist
Alex M. Chong – Interaction & Service Design
Matthew Ma – Visual & Interface Design
3-weeks rapid engagement to come up with conceptual interfaces that can be used to support challenges around the office for duplicate research projects and overlaps.
Emphasis on experimental user-interface only; no technical restrictions as this was a fully conceptual exercise. 3 weeks limited timeframe for delivery.
Investigate the office for moments of informal interaction as mediums and opportunities to disperse knowledge about the organization. Investigate the physical environment itself, and observe/understand the standard employee’s daily journey navigating through this office to seek moments of intervention.
Tools: investigation with current systems, environment observational study and employee ethnographic research, focusing on mapping of employee experience and corresponding touch-points; direct client workshopping (co-creation of experience map); rapid concept visual prototyping
The purpose of this case-study is to showcase skills that include strategic thinking in interaction design, teamwork leadership, process and thinking, production capability in tight timeframes, and increasing production throughput with design strategy as client value-add.
4 visualized concept interfaces, targeting different areas of the office and different moments of interaction including:
AutoDesk had a year-end budget to leverage towards working with our team on experiential interfaces; and in the spirit of approaching this as a structured design challenge, the clients agreed to narrow down the exploration area to conceptual interfaces and applications that target their internal employee experience.
While this design challenge was straightforward from the perspective of exploring the infinite possibility of imaginative interfaces – our team leveraged a user-centred design approach to investigate focus on the pain points of the respective user base. This project explores the perspective of the average employee in their day-to-day experience and how they both physically and digitally navigate their workspace.
To gather more context of the day-to-day interactions of employees, we visited their offices through 3 separate occasions for ethnographical research (perspective of the employee) and observation studies: the first was a general tour and orientation to the workspace, the second to capture specific photos of artefacts, and the third to review internal information systems to understand the employee’s digital workflow.