Tinkercad is a free app for 3D design, electronics, and coding used by millions of students and creative innovators worldwide.
• Goal: Refresh the logged in dashboard navigation and user profile pages to better align with new Tinkercad branding and improve overall usability and functionality.
• Time: Design in Fall 2023, development ~ 3 months, launched in March 2024.
• Role: Design/thought leadership, research, ideation, detailed final design specs. I worked closely with developers throughout to scope work, prioritize the most important updates for launch, and track follow-up work.
Opportunities for improvement
This project originated with a self-initiated heuristic evaluation of the old dashboard navigation. The old dashboard had an odd left panel that varied in height and sometimes needed to scroll. It also had a buggy search function that didn't work as expected, and lacked a centralized place to browse all of one's collections.
I championed the need to improve the user dashboard, took the initiative to get this project going, and collaborated closely with development to arrive at shared goals as we began the process of re-writing the dashboard in React.
Brainstorming
I led a series of group brainstorming exercises to imagine the ideal future of the dashboard. Some of the ideas raised included adding space for in-app communication about new features and upcoming events and adding more personalization based on user role so that we could show users what's most important to their own workflows.
The final new design
I narrowed in on a first round of improvements that would add a lot of immediate value to users and also set the groundwork for further enhancements later on. Some highlights include:
• Ability to expand/collapse the left panel improves usability on smaller devices such as Chromebooks and tablets which are very common in schools.
• New Homepage with new in-app announcements bar to communicate about new features and resources (personalized by user role).
• Collections merged into a single page instead of stacked in the nav. Adds a new overview page to visually browse and manage collections.
• Broken search fixed and moved to page level so that it works as expected.
Mobile improvements
The old mobile dashboard was not very functional or mobile friendly. The page navigation took up the entire screen so you had to scroll to see actual content and some page content wasn't responsive at all. I decided to move the nav to a top sticky scrollbar to make it always accessible and save space.
Revitalized user profile
The profile is where users go to manage their public view and keep up with the activity of their fellow Tinkerers. The old profile did not handle empty states well and also confusingly showed users their own designs that were not publicly viewable. This redesign elevates the user about info (with space to expand this area with stats over time) and introduces larger design cards to better celebrate and show off users' work.
Measuring success
Response from a happy stakeholder:
"The design meets all of our early target goals and exceeds them. It is more fun, useful, clear, and generally delightful. The dashboard is setup to be a place to better connect with our customers and help them to be successful as amazing teachers, designers, Tinkerers."
Some quotes from users:
"I believe my favorite addition is the recycle bin. I do appreciate the location of the search button too."
"Much cleaner, and it certainly helps me to navigate and order the many designs that have been building up."