Autodesk: Code-name Dragonfly (10/07 – 3/08)
For the last few months I have worked with an extremely talented team. We have explored numerous potential product concepts and several innovative UI models to make those products both competitive and unique. My part in this process is drawing to a close, but I expect some amazing products in the near future from Autodesk.
I worked closely with Brent Pennock (product designer) and Brian Souder (product manager). Our product designs focus on leveraging existing Autodesk technologies across the emerging software as a service (SaaS) distribution channel.
SaaS, strictly speaking, isn’t exactly new. It started to show up in common vernacular (well, common for techies) as early as 2000/2001. SaaS differs from application service providers (ASPs) in many ways, but most notably their architectures diverge. SaaS applications focus on web interfaces using a multi-tenant architecture (multiple people running the same application with virtually separated data, while ASP applications consider web interfaces an afterthought and create individual user instances of each application. I’m certain there are some great articles available on the ‘Net to describe the nuances between these two systems. I suggest starting at Wikipedia.
During the project, Brent and I created several different design concepts across a couple product concepts. The more promising design concepts were fleshed out into fairly robust wireframes after several weeks of customer interviews and paper testing. The next step will include developing a working or pseudo-working prototype, which will be used in usability testing.
Because the project is still in early stages, I don’t want to go into too much detail. First, there are nondisclosure agreements and business plans to consider. And second, I’m not sure what will happen in the next few months as usability testing uncovers flaws in the current design (hopefully there aren’t many of those). Once a beta of the product is released, I’ll speak about it in more depth. Check out Autodesk Labs for more information over the next few months.
UPDATE (2009-05-24):
It looks like Dragonfly is getting some public wings. Check it out at dragonfly.autodesk.com.