March 6, Team Members Rachel Celestine Feifei Guo Nayeri Jacobo Patrick Scully

Transcription

1 March 6, 2018 Team Members Rachel Celestine Feifei Guo Nayeri Jacobo Patrick Scully

2 Executive Summary Autodesk Fusion 360 is an innovative 3D CAD, CAM, CAE tool. It not only allows users to design, test and fabricate products in a single tool, but allows them to take work on their projects while on the go from a wide range of platforms and devices. Along with these features it also supports collaboration, even users who don t have Fusion 360. For this report, the users that are referenced throughout the evaluation will be Mechanical Engineers (ME) students from Rochester Institute of Technology. Our overall project goal is to better understand how to appeal to ME students in transitioning towards using Fusion 360 for their future projects. The Heuristic Evaluation was completed by each member first completing a series of tutorial walkthroughs that allowed us to create various products design. During the process, any heuristic or usability issues experienced were noted and collectively discussed at a later time. The overall responses to Autodesk Fusion 360 were positive, and many of the issues reported were minor. However, we do believe that addressing these issues will improve the efficiency of the overall user s experience. Product Description Name Autodesk Fusion 360 Version Operating System Mac & Windows Cost $40 per month or $300 yearly Product Objective The main objective of Fusion 360 is to support fast and efficient collaborative product development. Fusion 360 allows users to not only create drawings and renderings, but also optimize and validate their design by using the simulation feature. Fusion 360 allow users to create a design straight into manufactured product all-in-one software. Target Audience at Rochester Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineer undergraduate students Mechanical Engineer professors 1

3 Environmental Use Environmental use is the purpose in which Fusion 360 will be used. Academics: This includes Fusion 360 being used for lab project, class assignments, independent studies and capstone projects. Company: This includes Fusion 360 being used in co-ops, internships, corporate, research and startups. User Interface: Drawing Workspace The drawing workspace is used to present and annotate a design. In this section we will be highlighting some of the important features commonly used in the drawing workspace. Figure 1: Drawing Workspace main page when Fusion 360 starts up when opening the program. Drawing Tools and Features 1. Data Panel The Data Panel enables one to view the project and designs in a desired layout. Users can use the data panel to access existing designs, import data and add members to the project. 2. Browser The browser provides quick access to all the sketches, bodies, geometrics, etc. It presents an organized view of the data in one s design in a tree-like format. The light bulb icons help to control visibility. 2

4 3. Toolbar Similar tools are grouped together in the toolbar and can be customized based on the users preference. The Toolbar s default location is at the top of the drawing workspace. 4. Timeline The timeline contains all of the sketches and features that were used in the design process. Right-click operation on the timeline allows users to makes changes, while the drag-and- drop option changes the order they are calculated. 5. ViewCube The ViewCube is a navigation tool that provides a quick way to rotate design 360 degrees. User Interface Characteristics Salient characteristic are important and time-saving features that are useful for users. They are frequently used commands that are found in the drawing workspace or by using a keyboard shortcut. Compared with typical menu bar layouts, these tools are convenient and well-organized for the user to have easy access to specific tools during the design process. Hovering the mouse over submenu functional panels (Figure 2, see red box), a brief instruction pops up which helps beginners have an overview about a specific feature (Figure 2, see blue box). This feature makes the Fusion 360 interface more userfriendly, particularly to first time users, because it provides a detailed description about the tools functionality. Figure 2: Master-Detail Design Pattern found in Toolbar 3

5 Constraints are automatically created based on the position of the cursor (Figure 3, see red box) when using the sketch tool and they can be modified and edited by the user later. This feature ensures that the dimensions are associated with precise locations. Precise dimensions will become useful when manufacturing the product or when 3D printing. Figure 3: Automatic Dimension Configuration Keyboard shortcut S accesses sketch toolbox (Figure 4), including the search function so that users can look for sketch tools directly, which is time-saving for user who knows which specific tool he/she will use. Figure 4: Sketch Toolbox Keyboard Shortcut The marking menu (See Figure 5), a radio display of the most frequently used commands, is accessed by right-clicking in the canvas. As moving the cursor from center of the menu towards command, the wedge highlights (Figure 5, see red box). Click anywhere in the wedge launches the command. A feature for users to quickly access and personalize based on the most commonly used tool they use. Figure 5: Canvas & Marking Menu Left-Click Shortcut 4

6 Context of Use The users of Fusion 360 are expected to come from a diverse educational and experiential background. The collaborative power of its single cloud-based platform, simpler UI design, powerful tool set and affordability is designed to accommodate a wide range of users; starting from first year engineer students with little to no exposure to a CAD / CAM software through fourth year and graduate engineer students who have more extensive academic and experiential backgrounds. Through the hybrid environment that utilizes the power of the cloud, engineering students are not limited by lack of local resources, such as memory, or capabilities, such as collaborative work over multiple devices. Through the cloud platform, files can be shared, edited and commented on using both PC and Mac products, including mobile devices and tablets. These diverse access points allow teachers and classmates with or without Fusion 360 to view and interact with the file anywhere at any time through the user sharing an archived file, sharing a public link for project or directly inviting someone into a Fusion 360 project. Stakeholders User Profile The following table provides general description of ME student attributes with CAD/CAM software. Experience Level BEGINNER INTERMEDIATE EXPERT Academic Year Level Keyboard Shortcuts Use Number of CAD Programs Exposed To CAD / CAM Exposure Level First & Second Third & Fourth Fourth &Fifth (No graduate students) Mild use. 0-5 shortcuts 0-1 programs School, Independent Study Table 1: User profile for Mechanical Engineers undergraduate students at RIT Moderately dependent on shortcuts ( 5-10 ) 1-2 programs School, Internship, Co- Op Heavily dependent on shortcuts (10+) 2-3 programs Professional Work Environment, School Direct stakeholder would be ME undergraduate students because they are the desired target audience of the client. Indirect stakeholders are ME Professors because they are the ones that are viewing and grading the projects that the students turn in from Fusion 360 and other CAD / CAM programs. 5

7 Methodology The procedure used to evaluate the product. What Our Usability Testing Team conducted a heuristic evaluation of the Autodesk Fusion 360, version When Each team member individually conducted their own independent heuristic evaluation before coming together for a group evaluation and assessment on February 18, How Each team member individually and independently perused the tutorial resources on the Autodesk website. Then, each person completed a product walkthrough, identifying possible heuristic issues. Who: A four-member team of varying academic and experiential background, predominantly in the field of HCI and design. Rachel Celestine: A Master Student in Human-Computer Interaction, focus interest in web technology and mobile and wearable interface. Bachelor s in Computer Science & Japanese Studies with work experience in virtual reality research. Feifei Guo: A Master student in Visual Communication Design, focus interest in interaction design. Bachelor s in Communication with working experience as a product designer for mobile application. Nayeri Jacobo: A Master student in Human-Computer Interaction, focus interest on user experience research/ design. Bachelor s in Computer Information Systems with working experience in Information Technology. Patrick Scully: A Master Student in Human-Computer Interaction. Bachelors in Psychology and experience in prototyping 6

8 Heuristics The following are usability heuristics terminologies. 1. External Consistency The System uses interactions and design patterns that are consistent with the platform and analogous systems. 2. Internal Consistency Words, phrases, signifiers and design patterns are used in a consistent manner throughout the system. 3. Widgets and labels near targets Place widgets (control) adjacent to their respective targets of operation and labels on, or directly adjacent to, their associated controls. 4. Group like widgets/functions Use the gestalt principles of proximity, similarity and closure to group widgets with similar functionality and near their target of operation. 5. Frequently used functions optimized The system minimizes the user s cognitive load by keeping only the most salient information and signifiers visible. Frequently used functions are highly visible while infrequently used functions do not pollute the interface. The workflow is optimized for the most common usecases. 6. Speak User Language The system speaks to the user in their native language using signifiers that are contextually relevant (e.g. health care iconography in an application used by medical professionals). The system uses terminology familiar to the user rather than technical jargon. 7. Perceptibility of Feedback User interaction with the system must result in immediate, perceptible, and interpretable feedback. 8. Perceptibility of System State The user must have the ability to perceive the state of the system at any given moment. The key question to ask yourself is, If you were to walk up to the system, after having been away from it for an extended period of time, would you be able to properly interpret its current state? 7

9 9. Appropriate Selection of Design Patterns Are the optimal design patterns used within the system? For example, is progressive disclosure used for long data entry forms? Is the application using design patterns appropriate for the planform (e.g. mobile vs desktop)? Are wizards used where appropriate? 10. Minimize Knowledge to the Head (aesthetic and minimalist design) Does the system display the appropriate amount of information to the user? If the application uses a wizard design pattern, is the user forced to remember information from one or more previous steps in the wizard or is all of the information necessary to complete each step displayed concurrent with the step. Accessibility: Less is more, provide control to users to manage novel and interactive interfaces 11. User Control and Freedom (identify common purpose) The system should be configurable by the user and not force users to alter behavior in order to adapt to the system. The system should provide accelerators for more experienced users (e.g. keyboard shortcuts and context menus). Accessibility: The system should prevent users from being stuck in a state or triggering an event accidentally. 12. Error Prevention Where appropriate, the system should prevent the user from making an error via the appropriate implementation of constraints. Note: Sometimes, error recovery is preferred over error prevention and vice versa. Accessibility: Examine how design patterns contribute to frequent errors. 13. Novel Interactions Easily Learned and Recalled (recognition rather than recall) Novel interaction is easily learned and remembered because they take advantage of natural mappings and external consistency. Accessibility: Make instructions visible or easily retrievable. Inform users when interfaces change. 14. Help & Documentation Help should be easily accessible. Help may take the form of printed or electronic documentation, a knowledgebase, a wiki or a live chat system. 8

10 Heuristics Findings The following are usability heuristics that were detected during the evaluation of Fusion Pin Icon: Internal Consistency Figure 6: Button pin a function in the main menu Figure 7: Button to pin a file Pins are buttons that aids a user in putting frequently used functions, files, and shortcuts into a more available location. It is a function that is extensively utilized throughout Fusion 360. However, the use of the pin icon for files (see figure 10, red box) that is not the same as the pin icon for the toolbar items and actions (see figure 11, red box). Resulting in the violation of the heuristic internal consistency and potentially causing confusion in the pins functionality. A solution for this would be to use the most recognizable icon to represent the action in both menus. 2. Timeline Feature: Minimize Knowledge to the Head & Speak User Language Figure 8: Displays the main Sketch screen with the timeline highlighted by the red box 9

11 A menu at the bottom, of the screen documents the design process of the object being created, called the Timeline (Figure 8, red box). It allows the user to go back in time and modify certain steps without having to undo all the work that they completed. Although this feature is very powerful and beneficial to the user, it can be difficult to identify for first time Fusion 360 users, especially if they are completely new to CAD / CAM software. Due to its low discoverability, (e.g., lack of indicators providing contextually relevant information to the user about the purpose of the time) it violates the heuristic minimize knowledge to the head. The timeline also violates the heuristic speak user language because it requires a larger amount of mental effort from the user than intended to realize what that feature does. 3. Repetitive Wording: Minimize Knowledge to the Head Multiple drop-down menus use repetitive words where they are not necessary. For example, most of the options offered in the Insert drop down menu have Insert written followed by the menu item (see Figure 10, red box). When a user clicks on the Insert menu they intend to insert something onto the screen. By adding extra text to each option, increases the amount of mental effort the user must use to find the object they want, potentially slowing down their work flow. Adding additional information where is not needed violates the heuristic minimize knowledge to the head. Figure 10: Displays an example of a dropdown menu that has repetitive wording Figure 11: Displays drop-down menu without Insert in each option To reduce the mental effort of the user, decrease extraneous repetitive words users have to read. For example, items in the Insert drop down menu could remove the additional word Insert (see Figure 11). 10

12 4. Menu / Sub-Menu Grouping: Minimize Knowledge to the Head In use, the main menus offer a wide range of options to accommodate the large number of functions that Fusion 360 can perform. However, the extensiveness of these menus increases the mental load that a user s must utilize to locate a specific task, which is a violation to the heuristic minimize knowledge to the head. Figure 12: Construct menu broken down into potential submenus Reorganizing the options into a consistent and concise manner will reduce this mental load required. For example, the Construct menu could be broken down into 3 separate menus (see Figure 12) (1) the Plane tool menu, (2) the Axis tool menu and (3) the Point Menu. Submenus increase efficiency when scanning for related items, lowering the mental effort of the user. However, we caution against too many menu items because too many options also result in a higher mental load on the user s search process. 11

13 5. Hotkey Accessibility: Minimize knowledge in the head and User control and freedom Figure 13: Menu that appears when the hotkey 'S' is pressed on the keyboard Important toolbox sub-menu keys, such as using the keyboard shortcut (hotkey) to bring up the model toolbox (The S key) to pull up a customizable toolbox (see Figure 13), should be made to be more discoverable and highlighted to new users. This particular shortcut is not easily discovered, as information about it is not found in any menu or contextual area in the interface. It was only discovered by looking up an external tutorial for the program. This violates the heuristic of minimizing knowledge in the head, as this is a function the user has to enable every session, as well as have prior knowledge of its existence, since the toolbox does not exist by default in the interface. Also due to this low discoverability, user control and freedom is violated because potentially valuable tools to optimize a user s workflow are hidden. Using a customizable toolbox to document certain predetermined functions could lower the amount of mental effort required of the user creating a better user experience. Also, including a small toolbox icon next to the help menu that opens a pop-up screen of the most commonly used shortcut keys could increase user control and freedom. 6. Warning Notice: Perceptibility of feedback & perceptibility of system state Figure 14: Warning Indicators in Fusion

14 During the generation of objects and planes in the normal course of work, warning indicators such as things already generated in conflict with what you are creating, collision issues, and constraint errors of objects, can happen. When these warnings occur, the dialog box explaining the reason for the warning pops up, as well as a little icon at the bottom left of the interface appears (see Figure 14). The dialog box that is generated is also at the bottom left of the interface. Due to these warning icons not being in the focal area of vision, warning can go unnoticed, violating perceptibility of feedback. In order to address the warning, the user is required to pause their work, close out the pop-up dialog box, try to find the relevant problem, correct it, and finally clear the warning icon at the bottom left of the screen. The icon violates the perceptibility of system state because it continues to be displayed even after the problem has been addressed. 7. Multiple line distinction: Error Prevention Figure 15: A sample of one line highlighted over another line Figure 16: A sample of the longer line highlighted over the shorter one. Cannot distinguish which line is being selected. When the user is drawing multiple lines over each other, or on an adjoining rendering plane, the distinction between each individual line is not clearly visible to the user. The mouse pointer must be used to capture the exact line needed (see Figure 15), with very little room for error, as there are mere pixels between clicking one and the other (see Figure 16). Selecting and working with the wrong line can lead to errors and design issues; a violation to error prevention. The system should prevent the user from making an error and because the lack of endpoint identifiers in the selection methodology the system does not constrain the user from selecting the wrong line. This can possibly lead a design to transform from 2D to 3D and it not being the intended design. Creating a selection method that could take into consideration endpoints and the potential layering of 2D objects could assist in preventing errors related to selecting the wrong overlapping line. 13

15 8. Mouse Navigation documentation: Internal Consistency, Novel interactions easily learned and recalled & Help and Documentation Figure 17: Getting Started Menu on a PC. Missing Trackpad information Figure 18: Getting Started Menu on a MAC The mouse navigation documentation does not remain consistent between computer operating systems like PC and MAC. In a PC operating system the trackpad controls are not displayed in the Getting started screen (see Figure 17) and in the MAC operating system the trackpad controls are displayed (see Figure 18). The documentation stopped showing touchpad usability when a mouse was connected. This violates the Help & Documentation Heuristic, as there are many other options for controls, such as pan dials and other bespoke external devices. By limiting the amount of information provided with no indication of any other control options visible, limits the user's ability to perceive other methods of controlling the camera. Internal consistency is violated by not having the appropriate mouse button animated, but having other animations present in the Getting Started menu, as well as utilizing animations extensively in the tutorials built into Fusion 360. Due to the lack of animations, as well as the highlighting methodology of the buttons, those with color vision issues will have issues distinguishing the appropriate button to press, violating the novel interactions easily learned heuristic. This issue explicitly stems from the shading utilized on the rest of the mouse icon, and the small button for the scroll wheel being, at their darkest point, the same shade, mitigating relevance. Possible solutions could include animating the button clicks that are relevant to the action, changing the highlight color to something that contrasts a bit more, and standardizing the types of inputs shown in the Getting Started menu, and adding the option to find more input methods in the same menu, such as a button marked Other Options. 14

16 Usability Issues After conducting the evaluation, we prioritized each heuristic violation we found. They are sorted from highest priority first (Table 2). This table will be a point of reference when creating the usability testing. Fusion 360 Design Functionality Heuristic Violation 1 Hotkey Accessibility Important hotkeys used to optimize workflow are not easily discovered - Minimize Knowledge to the Head - User Control of Freedom 2 Timeline Feature Had low visibility from lack of contextually relevant indicators - Minimize Knowledge to the Head - Speak User Language 3 4 Warning Notice Warning messages and icons are not easily perceived because they are located outside of the users working focal vision. Menu / Sub-Menu Grouping Have extensive menus that increase the amount of mental effort needed to search for something - Perceptibility of Feedback - Perceptibility of System State - User Control of Freedom (Identify Common Purpose) Repetitive Wording Increases the mental effort of the user due to the use of extraneous wording Mouse Navigation Documentation There is inconsistency in the documentation of the mouse functionality. Also, the visual instructions can be difficult to comprehend, particularly for those who are affected by colorblindness. Multiple Line Distinction Overlapping or adjoined lines are not easily identifiable increasing the chances for future errors in the design Pin Icon Use different icons to represent similar actions - Minimize Knowledge to the Head - - Internal Consistency - Novel interactions easily learned and recalled Help and Documentation - Error prevention - Internal Consistency Table 2: Usability Issues Table based on Heuristics Findings 15

17 Conclusion The product is overall well-designed on the heuristic evaluation, but there are a few minor issues that our team identified and offered potential solutions for in this report. The two major usability issues that we recommend for further investigation are locating functions within the menu and using documentation to discover and learn how to accomplish a task. The suggested changes in this report focus on increasing efficiency and reducing cognitive load. We focused on these suggestions to formally appeals to ME students in transitioning towards using Fusion 360 for their future projects. 16