SolidWorks 3DContentCentral (3DCC) Redesign

The SolidWorks 3DContent Central (3DCC) website -- a model exchange service that allows vendors to post models of their inventory for mechanical/industrial designers to download and use in their designs -- had been largely untouched for about 5 years and it was starting to really show. The original site's visuals were dated, and the features were scattered and unfocused after organic adjustments over the years.  A renewed interest in updating the site, along with a new business model was proposed in the spring of 2014, and finally in June of 2015, a new redesigned 3DCC was launched!

Yours truly lead the UX of the redesign. Although I was no longer with the company when the redesigned site finally launched, the UX design was largely completed by the time I left and it's great to see how far the product team was able to take it by the launch.

Here's a quick look at the Before

Original 3DCC Home Page
Hard to focus on what was important and where to start

Original 3DCC Find Content Page
A lot of entry points to finding content

There was a lot of work to be done, so the work was phased into 3 sections. The initial phase was to revamp the home page and general styling, revise the backend to support the new business model offering, and showcase why users and vendors should be part of the 3DCC community.

After I completed the wireframes of the main areas we could affect in the first phase, I worked with a visual designer to get the branding and color palette into place to support our new initiative.

Here's a look at the After

New 3DCC Home Page
Highlighting "Search" as the main way for designers find parts to use in their design
Sponsorship is clean and clear
Updated the overall look and feel to include the proper branding logos and color palette

As the page scrolls, the header and footer are fixed with Search persistently accessible

New 3DCC Find Content Page
Only the header and footer were adjusted in this phase to accommodate the timeline

New 3DCC Subscription Benefits Page
The navigation / site information architecture was completely reworked into the new header navigation

New 3DCC Business Model Page
Simple at a glance view of the different offerings

New 3DCC Publisher's Catalog Dashboard
High level view of your content publishing status by catalogs (publishers can have more than one)
The content manager (grid of content controls in bottom left) was not redesigned in this phase

New 3DCC Usage Report
The new feature and main selling point of the new business mode
Publishers will get a detailed view of who has downloaded their models (leads)
The report is searchable and sortable, allowing publishers to cross sell if the lead has downloaded other models
The amount of detail publishers see will depend on their subscription level

Overall the relaunch is fairly successful. We brought the website up to modern standards and provided a wealth of new functionality that publishers would (hopefully) find valuable and be willing to spend more money on a higher subscription level than before. 

Marvelous Margaret: How I Became a Potato Head

It is never easy to leave when you've really built a family of close friends at your work. And when they decided to make you into a potato head it is even harder to say goodbye!

Marvelous Margaret Potato Head
She demolishes poor workflow!

Why a potato head? You may be wondering...

Well, it started out with this little toy collection I started on my desk...

Miss Marvelous joins the Super Hero/Star Wars/Marvel Pop Taters, PacMan, Back to the Future, and Ghostbusters

And my colleagues thought, the only appropriate send off would be to make a super hero potato head of yours truly. Complete with frequently seen accessories like my fingerless gloves and my purple hair streak.

They started with a concept sketch, and then the team set to work.

Vinny drew an illustrator version of Miss Marvelous. She's carrying the DS "Compass" as a shield. After all, she's a super hero, she needs some kind of weaponry. Ben 3D modeled the shield and had it 3D printed.

The team purchased some potato parts and combined parts of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads to get the right elements in place. Mrs. Potato Head had blond hair and eyelashes, so Vinny painted them black. Additionally he painted the purple streak in too.

Alex custom made the box, including the feet cutout so Miss Marvelous didn't rock around inside.

And of course, have to pitch the fact that it is extremely tasty with cheese (it is a potato after all) and of course it has to be in French as well (the parent company - DS - is French)

Chinloo created the fingerless gloves by creating a fingerless glove! She took a normal sized magic glove, cut off the finger tips which is about the size of Miss Marvelous's hand, and then cut the tip off and a small side hole to fit the potato hand. She then used sparkly glue to keep it from fraying at the edges.

But wait, there's more!

Miss Marvelous is carrying a Batdz Maru backpack, complete with purple backpack straps made from purple electrical tape!

So of course, the only reasonable thing for me to do is dress as my potato head the next day. Complete with the purple shoes and red hoodie.

Badtz Maru is not amused... but then, he never is. =D

And there you have it - how I became a potato head. :)

What's New in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2015 - Copy Tree

Yours truly revamped the UI for an existing feature of SolidWorks Enterprise PDM - Copy Tree. In SolidWorks ePDM 2015, the UI was revamped, cleaned up, and given a brand new filter capability that allows users to locate the file they want in the fastest time possible. 

A more in depth post will appear at some point, for now, a repost of the original blog on SolidWorks by Mike Fearon follows below. 

http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2014/09/solidworks-2015-manager-showcase-whats-new-in-epdm.html

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The SOLIDWORKS annual release starts with feedback provided by you, our community, and finds its way to the people responsible for including your request in our annual release. For SOLIDWORKS 2015, we wanted to introduce you to some of the people responsible for the new features and let them describe their favorite tools included in the 2015 release. Today’s SOLIDWORKS Expert is Kurt Lundstedt, Product Manager, EPDM

Kurt on what’s new: Copy Tree has been available in SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM (EPDM) for many years, but in 2015 the user interface has been completely redesigned making it much easier to create new product structures.  As we all know, many companies reuse existing designs to make new ones.  These new designs often share many of the same sub-assemblies and components with the prior version as well as incorporating new designs.  That’s where Copy Tree comes in handy and in 2015 there are many new features that make it much easier to find and select the files to be reused or copied.  Some of the new features include:

• Selection filters based on file type and/or any text string in the file name or file property can make a large product structure easy to work with.
• Thumbnail previews for SOLIDWORKS files give the user an instant visual clue of the file they are looking at.
• Excluded folders so users don’t mistakenly make copies of standard library components
• Easy folder and file editing dialogs including searching for destination folders

The driving force behind this feature was customers telling us, both via direct interviews and submitted enhancement requests, that the interface was cumbersome to work with when working with large assembly structures. Another thing we discovered is that it was difficult for users to know what file they were looking at because most companies name their part and assembly files with a part number. Adding thumbnail previews provides users with quick visual feedback so they can make more accurate decisions.

Hand Modeling on Android This Time

Apparently I've graduated from iOS device hand modeling to Android device hand modeling!

The eDrawings for Android application was just launched in the Google Play app store today and yours truly was once again the hand model for showcasing the application on a Nexus 7 Android tablet. The app will work on various Android device sizes running Android 4.0+.

Maybe there's an alternative career here after all.... ;)

More Hand Modeling (and a New eDrawings iPad / iPhone App)

We launched!

eDrawings iPad & iPhone apps (both Pro and Standard) has launched with a new feature - Augmented Reality!

Yours truly is not only a hand model for the app description page this time around, I actually had something to do with designing the Augmented Reality (AR) feature, including the user interface for scaling, locking the viewport, and gestures for manipulating the model like lifting the model off the table.

What is Augmented Reality, you might ask. Here's the wikipedia definition: Augmented reality(AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

It's a new world of 3D model manipulation on smart mobile devices in virtual space.

That's right - SolidWorks has launched this new feature on the existing eDrawings iPhone and iPad apps, so if you have already bought the apps, get the update and the feature will automatically appear. If you haven't bought it... well... what are you waiting for? =P

Hand Model

It's not every day I get to say my hands are being seen by thousands of strangers in the iTunes app store. But that's what I get to say today! The eDrawings Pro iPad App launched and my hands were used for the shot holding the iPad and app. Maybe I have potential as a hand model if this user experience thing doesn't pan out. :-)