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San Francisco
USA

203-722-0580

Portfolio of Allison V. Leach, a San Francisco User Experience Researcher and Strategist

Autodesk

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leading user RESEARCH at autodesk

In 2015, I joined Autodesk as the first UX Researcher for their newest cloud-based 3D CAD software Fusion 360.

Although I was new to the world of 3D modeling at the time, I was quickly captivated by Fusion's zealous user base. They comprise a mix of (1) enthusiasts and students who want to learn 3D printing, (2) start-ups trying their first CAD/CAM software, and (3) seasoned industry pros looking to replace or enhance their current modeling capabilities.

As different as these customers are, they have one thing in common — a contagious passion for making things.

During my first 4 years at Autodesk, I independently planned, executed, and delivered user research for Fusion. I consulted designers, product leads, and data analysts to prioritize which studies need to be done, and how to incorporate high-impact action items from findings at each stage of the product lifecycle for 20+ vital software areas.

For example, in 2018 onboarding enhancements from my Monthly Active User study resulted in a 9% increase in new user conversion after a series of usability interviews for our new browser platform identified critical bugs and design fixes for improved workflows before widespread release.

By 2020, Fusion 360’s monthly active customers grew from 55k to 557k.

Today I’m happy to report that research plays an integral role in Fusion 360’s product development. In 2019 Autodesk invested in an additional researcher, and today several members lead this initiative.

Below is a snapshot of the diverse methods and platforms I employed across generative, evaluative, and validative research stages.

Please contact me for a walk-through of detailed use cases.

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GENERATIVE  

Field visits with customers such as APROE, Alta Motors, Portland Community College, Northrop Grumman, ProtoPasta, Opendrone, and Grovemade.

Participatory design sessions to understand how/why users imagine future product solutions — for example, new collaboration experiences in Fusion.

Platforms: Adobe CC, InVision, Sketch, Balsamiq, Axure.

Needs gathering interviews to learn users' behaviors, attitudes, workarounds, and more. Sample topics: Concurrent Engineering, Release Management, Touch Interaction Design, and Virtual Reality.

Persona development and journey mapping to focus in on key customer profiles and their workflows.

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EVALUATIVE

Task-based usability studies of prototypes and development builds to collect feedback on new designs. Releases include: New User Onboarding, Sheet Metal, Fusion 360's design browser, Data Experiences, Rendering and Simulation Tools.

Platforms: Zoom, Usertesting.com, UserVoice, Validately, dScout.

Benchmark studies to understand how well essential 3D workspaces perform over time.

UX acceptance criteria to meet a baseline target for user success before every feature release.

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validative

Quarterly surveys to capture customer satisfaction, install/uninstall experiences, user demographics, and more. 

Platforms: Qualtrics, UserVoice

User analytics to measure customer acquisition and product usage workflows. Usage tracked from beta stage through final production.

Platforms: Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Splunk, Tableau, Looker BI. 

Ongoing feedback collected from our active community forums and UserVoice widgets (in-product forms to collect NPS and feedback). Insights identified using a combination of Clarabridge and Qualtrics Text iQ analysis, as well as custom text mining models.

The Autodesk Research Mobius