For this project, I was in charge of creating the design and following through with development. I studied competitive products and needs in the industry to develop a command dialog that would be useful for power users but also aid those that were not familiar with engineering standards. I collaborated with development to adjust our current framework to create a new command that would provide visual feedback to users. The collaboration with Autodesk Inventor helped us to unify two company products. Research, iteration and final design needed to be completed in three months to begin development.
Too Lazy; Didn't Read
The Setup
The creation of a new command to combine the separated hole and thread commands gave us the opportunity to explore competitive projects and add features that simplify the use.
In the current framework the options are all available via drop downs. There is no visual feedback to help associate the dimensions in the command to the segment.
In its existing state there was no way to create standard sized holes.
Customer Needs
Clearance/ Standard Hold
Which Types/sizes
allow entry of custom hole sizes
Placement
Centroid placement not associative
Placing hole on vertices is awkward
No good feedback of associativity
No way to place hole on vertex after initial plane selection (hole preview removes vertex) - cannot drag onto snap points if they have been placed on the plane already
Reuse of joint snap points?
Clean up
better "remember last" behavior
hole sizing issue (Carl)?
Other
Specify hole size/type by referencing other holes (same as referencing another fillet)
allow holes to break out model geometry on their from side
add chamfers to near and far hole edges
Thread
Pass tap drill diameters to CAM
Pass thread info to CAM
Better "remember last" behavior - could we add hole "templates" or favorites
Master switch for threaded vs cosmetic - parallel project?
Master switch for Tap/Major/Minor
Tapered Threads
Threaded Hole
Which Types/sizes? - spread sheet tab and table that covers 80%
Allow entry of custom threads - allow users to edit spreadsheet and create their own
Pass tap drill diameters to CAM
Pass thread info to CAM
Allow entry of custom threads - allow users to edit spreadsheet and create their own
Pass tap drill diameters to CAM
Pass thread info to CAM
Market Research
Exploration of current hole and thread commands in other CAD applications. Dissected the different command dialogs to determine which parts we could incorporate into our new command dialog.
Siemens Solid Edge
Siemens NX
Dassault Systèmes Solidworks
The Inventor UX design team was working on a visual redesign for their own product, which gave us the opportunity for collaboration. This presented them with the opportunity to re-achitect the command dialogs. Hole and thread was the first iteration of this. One of their designs had began exploring different iterations of the design. I took their idea of progressive disclosure and applied it to our command dialog to combine the Hole and Thread commands.
Working With Autodesk Inventor
Working With Autodesk Inventor
In its existing status the framework did not allow for visual feedback. The structure of the command dialogs was very strict only allowing inputs on the right and text on the left.
In collaboration with development, we came up with a design that would not consume development resources but would still provide the visual feedback needed for users.
Collaboration with Development
Iterations and workflows
Countless sketches
34 prototypes
3 workflow diagrams
13 stakeholder meetings
Final Design
The prototype was created in Sketch and interactions were added in InVision.
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