Understanding Administrative Mental Models

The transition to cloud-based products created an unexpected challenge: administrators who excelled at managing complex enterprise environments suddenly found themselves struggling with fragmented interfaces that didn’t match their established workflows.

Through interviews and shadowing sessions, I discovered that administrators naturally think about project management as a unified, hierarchical system. They expect to see all their projects, permissions, and team members in one place, with clear relationships between different components.

Research & Discovery Process

I conducted workflow analysis sessions with administrators managing multiple Autodesk cloud products. The research revealed that the fragmentation wasn’t just inconvenient—it was creating real business problems as administrators struggled to maintain consistent access control and project organization across platforms.

The key insight was that administrators weren’t asking for more features; they were asking for coherent structure. They needed a system that matched their mental models of how project administration should work.

Design & Architecture

The centralized portal design focused on creating logical groupings that matched administrative thinking patterns. Instead of forcing administrators to understand the technical differences between products, the interface presented a unified view organized around projects, teams, and access levels.

I designed the permissions system to work consistently across all products while still respecting the unique requirements of different tools. This required close collaboration with engineering teams to create an abstraction layer that maintained flexibility while providing administrative simplicity.

Implementation & Results

The Common Project Administration system transformed how enterprise customers managed their Autodesk cloud environments. Instead of juggling multiple interfaces and inconsistent permission systems, administrators could manage everything from a single, coherent dashboard.

The positive reception from enterprise customers validated the approach of designing around mental models rather than technical architecture. The system became the foundation for future cloud administration features across Autodesk’s product portfolio.