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. 

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. :-)

LEGO Mindstorms NXT Icons

One of the major differences between working for a product company and a consulting company (at least for web consulting) is the time scale between design and when the design goes live.

I had done some simple icon design work in support of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT support package for MathWorks Simulink over a year ago.  The idea was to provide icons that help identify each Simulink block which can be sensors or hardware, depending on the system model's need.  After my departure I had no idea if the icons were ever launched.

I just found out it did go live with the March 2012 release and grabbed the screenshots off of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Support from Simulink product information page gallery.

There's also a page on MatLab Central: Simulink Support Package for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT hardware. It has a screenshot of the library too.

I'm so glad to finally see the work in the product and out in the world. These icons were created as a stop gap measure since we were resource and schedule constrained. I wasn't sure if they would be placeholder icons until someone else gets to them, or if they will actually go out with the product. 

I'm glad it's the latter. It's always such a joy to see your work out in the world. Here's a clearer look at each of the icons designed. 

Icon Design for Banana Republic

We come back from break to do an exercise in icon design. The premise is that main navigation categories on the Banana Republic website is being swapped out with icons. And off we go.

I created hand drawn sketches of the options and created a formal survey requesting rankings of first impression / visual appeal, clarity of meaning of each icon, and overall success of communicating the intended meaning (after those being surveyed took a stab at identifying each icon of each option first).

As with all design, not every option is good, so much hilarity ensued on some of the more ambiguous icon designs.

It was unanimously voted by those surveyed that Option C was the way to go.

So Option C is the concept that got graphically designed out. I did some general surveying on Facebook on how well these icons work, and they communicated what they needed to quite well, so I was happy that it worked out. :)

KitchenAid KitchenMentor Fridge and iPhone App

Our individual project assignment was to create a touch screen interface with accompanying iPhone app called KitchenMentor for KitchenAid's smart fridge. The goal is to help busy everyday folks manage their food and groceries by providing timely information such as when certain food items are low or out, or will be expiring soon.

Many other features are included, but one of the more interesting things we did was hack PowerPoint to create an interactive prototype/demo. I recorded the portion of the presentation that was the demo in the video below. For some reason blogger's video screen freeze is really pixelated below, but the actual video isn't so bad. Give it a bit of time to load fully before playing for best view experience. :)

The demo is just illustrating the touch screen interface that is mounted on the fridge. There is also an accompanying iPhone app that has a subset of the full functionality the fridge mounted display would have. Here are the samples screens that illustrate taking the user from Home -> KitchenDoc -> Recipes -> Recipe Details.

It's my first iPhone app design. Given Apple's rigorous guidelines on buttons and navigation at the top it looks pretty standard iPhone app. But I was glad I could get the custom colors in there to match the fridge display.

CarMe iPad App

Assignment 2 is to design an iPad application called CarMe, which is a car finder application. The point of the assignment is to go to the basics, do some card sorting of user goals and needs, and create several different conceptual models of how this app should work. I came up with a generic Specs Concept that every car finder out there does, a Behavior Concept that would be more inquiring of your driving needs and behavior, and a Personality Concept that's a take off on dating sites. Find your perfect (car) match! =P

Printing to scale again, I am glad I found an iPad background because it really puts the actual UI elements in context. That big black border ate up so much of my ink I had to go buy new cartridges over the weekend but the final effect was really good, so I'm glad I did that. The flow is pretty self-explanatory once you get past the fact that the initial questions are posed as if you're on a dating site looking for your perfect (car) soul mate.

For example, if you had answered you would want to "Hike the Grand Canyon", and the most important trait is "Frugal to a fault", the system will have some super cool intelligence to match you with the cheapest 4 wheel drive car it can find. =)

Presto! Salata's Automated Salad Bar

I'm taking a class on software user interface design for the HCI certificate program at Tufts that I got into at the end of last year. The amount of focus on graphic and visual design surprised me quite a bit. Although it takes me a long time, the one really positive thing is I get to add a few pieces to my portfolio. :)

The first assignment is to create a touch screen interface for Presto! which is an automated salad bar that can build custom salads per user's input. Imagine that there's a display attached to the side of a "cart" of sorts that will magically put the salad together. I designed out 6 sample screens in the user's workflow.

The Welcome screen introduces the concept of the kiosk and allows the user to switch to one of 6 different languages the interface is offered in.

To start, the user can choose from several preset options, or choose to build their own. This user selected the Chicken Caesar salad.

Once selected the salad details are displayed. This user wanted to go back and create their own.

 Within the custom creation screen, they can choose the greens, meats, toppings, and etc that they would like.

Then they can add beverages (it appears Salata has a partnership with Nantucket Nectars) and buy Salata's signature dressings with their order.

At the end, the order summary is shown to the user. They can complete their transaction on the pin pad and Presto! will whip up the desired order!

So for the class, we had to print the design out in color, on stock paper, and to scale. It totally killed my ink but they do look pretty nice. One really good thing about printing drafts out to scale was testing the "pressability" of buttons. Unlike using a mouse, if buttons are too small or too close my fat fingers would press them together. I made modifications to the initial drafts with that in mind, so I was glad that they needed to be printed to scale. 

Believe it or not, I managed to do the bulk of this design using Visio, which has been my tool of choice for wireframing, but never thought of as a design tool. For some elements I had to go out to a real photo and graphics program (like the masked round photos on the Welcome screen) but that's about it. I learned a lot about what Visio can do from a graphical perspective and realized it's a bit more powerful than I originally thought. Assignment 1, check! :)

Experiencing adidas miCoach: Discovering Workout Trends

The long weekend was good for catching up with friends, sleep, and…. workouts! The weather was pretty good on a few days and I went out to explore new grounds and new neighborhoods. I found that the bike path was a great place to run because it was well shaded with lots of trees and a nice breeze came through frequently too.

I got a few workouts in and am now almost a quarter of the way through my plan!

It’s exciting to see progress in terms of the plan, and it’s pretty cool too when you look at overall progress over time. I’ve been at it for about a year now, and the history graphs show I’ve been consistent in some areas and sporatic in others.

Here’s my Time breakdown per month in the last year. I was definitely a bit overzealous when I started and there was definitely some slacking around the winter and the holidays.

But taking a look at the Distance breakdown it looks a bit more even.

My Pace breakdown is pretty even as well. Good to know that after the winter hiatus I didn’t regress much.

The most interesting one of all is the Heart Rate breakdown. The system captures how much time I actually spent in each heart rate zone during my workouts, and colors the bar graph in with the zone color I was in.

This graph is revealing because it shows I haven’t been working as hard as in the beginning. I spent a lot more time in red in the early months, and I’m barely in any red in the last two. I credit that to following the plan better, which doesn’t require me to work super hard to gain results. Work smarter not harder. :)

Another way to see workout trends is in the Workout Journal, which is linked both from the Track menu and also on the bottom left of the History graphs. It shows data for every workout I’ve done in a table format.

Selecting the column headings will sort all the data by that stat. Since I’m on the lose weight plan I wanted to see workouts where I’m burning the most calories.

The sorted view shows top calorie burning workouts are all from my current plan, so I’m heading in the right direction with this plan!

Experiencing adidas miCoach: Analyzing Workout Details

There are lots of ways to analyze my workout performance after I sync the data to the web. The most basic one is the automatic system feedback that tells me my performance against what miCoach had prescribed for me.

There’s also the quick visual on my heart rate chart that shows how much my heart rate stayed within the workout colors intended.

I can also open the color zone boxes at the right of my heart rate chart to see actual time and stats spent within the color. According to this workout, I spent more than 4 minutes of the 21 min workout in green.

I can also overlay another statistic on top of my current stat view. I found it fascinating to overlay the pace data on top of the heart rate. Most of the time an increase in my pace means an increase to my heart rate. Sometimes I have to stop at street corners or pause for other reasons, but my heart rate isn’t that reactive so it might only fluctuate slightly.

And finally, there’s a checkbox on the bottom right corner of the chart called “Analysis Bounds”. When I turn that on, I can drag the boundaries around on the chart to focus in on the area of the workout I really care about. This workout had 5 minutes of warm up and 10 minutes of cool down. What I really cared about was the middle few minutes where I was going back and forth between the green and yellow zones. I dragged the bounds in to the beginning and end of that area and the summary stats at the top adjusts to reflect only the data within my boundaries. I actually hit 100% within that half a mile block!

That got me thinking whether I did just as well with some of my other workouts. I can click on the workout name and open the workout navigator and quickly jump to a previously completed workout and do this all over again. :)