Opportunity

With Autodesk’s pivot to cloud-based products, administrators faced a fragmented experience: each product maintained its own web instance—or “hub”—requiring manual setup and management across multiple locations. The challenge was to consolidate these disparate systems into a single, unified portal within the Autodesk Account tool, reflecting the real-life mental models of project administration.

Process & Key Findings

I started by diving deep into how administrators naturally think about project management and the complexities of juggling multiple hubs. Through interviews, shadowing sessions, and workflow analysis, I uncovered several key insights:

• Fragmented Workflows: Admins were forced to navigate separate instances for each product, leading to inefficiencies and a steep learning curve.
• Unified Mental Models: Administrators viewed project management as a cohesive, centralized task—not as a collection of disjointed systems.
• Complex Permissions: Managing roles and access across different hubs was both cumbersome and error-prone.

Design & Execution

Guided by these findings, I reimagined the administration experience with a focus on unification:

• Centralized Management: I designed an interface that standardized the management of all web instances into a single, streamlined portal.
• Intuitive Workflows: The new design mirrored real-world administrative practices, simplifying tasks like setting permissions, managing roles, and overseeing memberships.
• Iterative Prototyping: Continuous stakeholder feedback and rapid prototyping ensured that the solution was both practical and aligned with administrators’ expectations.

Key Deliverables

• Centralized Administration Dashboard: A unified portal for managing instances, roles, permissions, and memberships across all Autodesk cloud products.
• High-Fidelity Prototypes & User Flows: Detailed prototypes and journey maps that showcased the streamlined workflows and centralized management approach.

Outcomes

The Common Project Administration feature transformed the administrative experience:

• Unified Experience: Administrators now manage all their hubs from one location, eliminating the need for manual, product-by-product configuration.
• Enhanced Efficiency: Streamlined workflows and intuitive design reduced administrative overhead and minimized errors.
• Positive User Adoption: Stakeholders and enterprise customers praised the solution for aligning closely with their real-world processes, setting a new standard for cloud-based administration within Autodesk.

This project exemplified how understanding user mental models can drive the creation of a cohesive, user-centric experience that not only simplifies workflows but also empowers administrators to manage complex environments with ease.