UX teardown: Autodesk Tinkercad to Fusion 360
I’m browsing Instagram and come across the above ad where you can apparently take your cartoony-looking Tinkercad design and make it look real (without making it physical) — so render in 3D essentially.
This sparks my attention and I dive deeper to try it out on one of my own Tinkercad designs.
I click, and land on:
CAD… CAM… CAE?!
What the hell are all of these acronyms?
What is this? What does it do? Why… why am I here? I just wanted to make my Tinkercad design look more realistic as per AD…!
In this case Autodesk is most likely converting 1–2% of Tinkercad users.
If that.
I’ve downloaded the trial version before without giving it an ‘open’, so it has expired since. I must click “Subscribe” as they are suggesting with their prominently highlighted yellow button.
…Interesting choice of color for a main call-to-action.
All I’m seeing at this point are huge numbers and boxes. A lot of boxes.
Everything feels chaotic and disconnected. there’s stuff EVERYWHERE.
Why is this experience filling my entire screen and forcing me to not only to shift my eyes but turn my head for 3 basic options — completely unnecessarily?
A missed opportunity in the front-end department. Here’s a quick fix I would perform in order to get things started:
Let’s look at it from the business perspective, which seems completely disconnected from this whole ‘Tinkercad thing’.
I’m most likely a child, or a “maker”, who, for obvious reason of it being free (and awesome) chose to go with Tinkercad.
I’m the kind of person who would rather get 3–4 spools of PLA for $60... And this is PER MONTH? Just to create a render of my pot holder?
…Wait a second. They seem to be offering something even better!
An even larger number!
One more thing I was going to comment on is the lack of conversion elements which reassure the user and make them want to give you their hard-earned money.
Autodesk is giving me absolutely no reason as to why I should be giving them my money in the first place, let alone even more money upfront by choosing the longer-term options.
These do save me money, right?
Do I really need to pull out my calculator to figure out how much, or will you let me know?
I had to pull out my calculator after all…
…I couldn’t quite tell just how much better this next option is, since I’m terrible at math and cannot multiply 12 × 60 for a total of 720 in my mind, and then subtract 495 from that to get to the savings of $225.
This is a marketing fail.
Conversion on this page must be so sub-par, that Autodesk must be creating a ‘cool’ feature as I’m writing this, to try and reverse this in hopes that people will find it more appealing.
For this much money I could buy _________ (insert whatever it is you want to buy for your hobby), because that’s a huge chunk of money that I’m certainly NOT going to lock myself into so I could make 3D renders…
…For a brief moment, my mouse leaves the browser window and all of a sudden things drastically change.
I find myself in a completely different/new experience.
I hope that any designer creating these ‘micro experiences’ burns in hell for eternity…
Let’s take a closer look at the experience I’m being offered here.
Moving from very large design that spans entire screen and forces you to turn your head from left to right, to a very targeted message which draws all of your attention to a poor (and desperate at this point, I might add) attempt at collecting any user information — in any way possible.
Then, these designers/developers choose to create an invisible exit strategy which involves searching your way out of this maze…
The ‘close’ button is so “slick” and so small, that I’m betting some never end up finding it!
People, are you trying on purpose to get the visitor to NOT to complete the purchase…. or?
OK, so going back to the whole ‘purchase’ thing…
I’m in the process of getting an app. OK? AN APP!
Not “unlocking” (again, Autodesk’s genius Marketing department at work) a darn video!
What I’m being offered is completely irrelevant to my needs.
Give me a discount or something!
Again, there is such an enormous disconnect here.
Between disciplines.
Between groups who are involved in this project.
And finally, between the product and those who build it.
…I changed my mind, I don’t feel like spending money on this anymore.
Where to find me online:
I document quite a bit on my personal blog: www.yuriysklyar.com
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