Streamlining Asset Tracking @ Autodesk
Estimated 10 min read
How did I create impact?
My designs provided actionable insights to admins, resulting in faster issue resolution and project completion.
For the business, my work reduced churn and the need for a third-party integration with an improved native experience.
What makes this case study unique?
I advocated for 2 rounds of research, resulting in data-driven design decisions
In addition to the final designs, I also delivered a future-proof design (vision for expanding this feature in the next 5 years)
What does the Assets team do?
The Assets Team's main priority is to enables users to track & visualize construction components across a project's lifecycle.
All Assets move through statuses until they are accepted.
Problem: Users lack a comprehensive view of project progress
Resulting in:
❌ Missing Critical Issues
⏰ Delayed Project Progress
📈 Increased Costs
Despite being a longstanding product, customers frequently expressed frustration over insufficient visibility, making it difficult to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and allocate resources effectively.
Building a solid foundation with Research
My PM and I conducted qualitative research with 5 current customers and 3 internal domain experts to gain deeper insights into users’ asset tracking needs and identify areas for improvement.
This is how we structured the research calls:
1) Card sorting
To clarify users' priorities and the key questions they face in asset management
2) Usability Testing
Going through the Hackathon Prototype to gather feedback and refine its value.
Findings
1) Different users require different levels of understanding on a project.
Some users want a Birds Eye view of a large project, while other users need a granular understanding of tasks. The current platform doesn’t support both sets of users.
2) Users have a different understanding of what colors mean, compared to how Autodesk uses colors throughout the platform, leading to confusion and misunderstanding.
3) Flagging issues is critical to prevent project delays. Users lack a scalable overview of project issues and must check assets individually, slowing down progress.
4) Accessibility concerns; In the existing design, the black text on dark blue is illegible. We need to find a way to show both the percentage and corresponding shade of blue.
Cross-functional brainstorming
After synthesizing the research, I presented the insights to the team and led a cross-functional brainstorming session with the PMs and Engineers to collect ideas on possible solutions.
Here are the concepts we brainstormed, focusing on varying levels of information granularity and multiple approaches to visualizing statistics.
Single Percentage
Overall Progress by Project
Project Issue Count
Overall Progress by status
Timeline by status
Progress View
Stacked Bar Chart
Donut Pie Chart
Active View
Donut Pie Chart
Issue Count Tableview
Research Part II: Matching User Needs
To better understand what type of information visualization best matches user needs, we conducted research through card sorting with the same 5 customers and 3 internal domain experts.
We found that users preferred the following data highlighted to help them make critical decisions.
For granular information:
1) Active issues per individual asset
For overall project progress:
1) Real Time Asset Progress
2) Asset Progress over time
Granular Information Design Explorations
In the existing design, users were able to see their assets in a table, but didn't have insight on areas holding up project process. I proposed to add the active issues and active forms columns. This helps users flag down areas holding up project progress,
Additionally, I designed a popover that appears upon hover that directs users to the specific issue when clicked on.
Overall Project Progress Design Explorations
The existing design showed both 1) Real Time Asset Progress and 2) Asset Progress over time, but the designs weren't accessible —the visualization colours the entire cell with a hue of blue that corresponds to the percentage of completion.
✅ Pros: Colour is very telling of the state of progress
❌ Cons: Not accessible, black text on a dark blue background fails WCAG miserably. In fact, any cell with a percentage higher than 35% is illegible.
I needed to explore alternative ways to visualize the data. Here's a snapshot of some of my explorations.
Option 1: Outlining/highlighting numerical value
✅ Pros: Easier to read the percentage
❌ Cons: Doesn't align with current design system & contrast is distracting
Option 2: Matching colours in circles to the status colour
✅ Pros: Easier to read the percentage
❌ Cons: Difficult to interpret meaning from variety of different colours
Option 3: Containing shades of blue to circles.
✅ Pros:
1) Easy to read the percentage
2) Easier to interpret meaning from shade of blue
3) Aligns with Design system.
❌ Cons: Different shades of blue are harder to differentiate given the smaller size of circles, however overall project progress is still communicated.
Final Designs
Learnings and Reflections
Cross-functional alignment accelerates impact
Engaging with PMs and engineers early through collaborative workshops ensured design decisions were user-centered, technically feasible, and aligned with business goals.Research is only as valuable as its execution
Card sorting and usability testing provided insights, but their real impact came when deciding which data visualization best served users. By prioritizing the most intuitive option, we made a research-driven decision that aligned with user needs and improved clarity.Designing for today while planning for tomorrow
Beyond the MVP, I developed a future-proofed concept to ensure scalability over the next five years, giving the team a clear roadmap for growth and iteration.
That’s one win—let’s check out another!
