Company: Autodesk
Entry submitted by: Michael Pascucci (MPascucci) Senior Community Engagement Manager
Community: Autodesk Community (http://forums.autodesk.com/)
Lithy category: Best Community Design
Autodesk, Inc. is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries use Autodesk software to design, visualize, and simulate their ideas before they're ever built or created.
Like most software companies, Autodesk is focused on providing comprehensive solutions that our user base can rely on while also reaching new areas of the marketplace that were previously uncharted. Unlike other companies, Autodesk is also committed to reinventing our standard business model, moving away from standard licensing and into a flexible use anywhere, on any device, at anytime model.
With a very large portfolio of products, constant flow of acquisitions, emerging space in the consumer market, and increased access, our traditional support and feedback mechanisms no longer match our nontraditional business goals, nor are they able to keep up with the rapid customer base growth.
Lithium has provided us with an avenue to combat the above, providing a true peer-to-peer community space where users ask technical and subject matter related questions, share suggestions and answers, support overall product mastery, and collaborate on future product and service enhancement suggestions, all the while reducing the need for direct one-on-one support (forums) and Research and Development (ideastations).
Autodesk Community Redesign
In November 2013 the Autodesk Community site was rereleased, following an extensive redesign process which was supported by Lithium Professional Services. The result was a new compelling, easy-to-use site & experience that: optimizes our customers' ability to help themselves as well as each other; accelerates collaboration and innovation with our products & services; enables easy content creation, curation and distribution; all the while extending customer relationships each other, and Autodesk as a whole.
Focus of redesign:
- Update the look and feel
- Improve the navigation
- Increase offerings for interactions
- Create a visually appealing and personal experience
We feel that we have taken a major step in accomplishing what we were set out to, after listening to our Community and what their needs were.
User Benefits:
The Autodesk Community redesign will deliver member-driven changes to enhance the structure, feature set and visual design of the community – all intended to deliver answers to our customers as quickly as possible and ease unnecessary overhead contributing to the community.
We have updated the look and feel, creating a true destination for our Community. We have improved the overall navigation, creating an intuitive interface for our Community to be able to find information easily. We have “up-leveled” our Idea Station and Articles to the front page for easy access. We are also highlighting our Community members (Expert Elites), which should help to increase our activity within member profile pages. We will also be updating the ToS of the Community to add Creative Commons licensing to all community content.
Business results
Watch our video showcasing our redesign: https://autodesk.app.box.com/s/lcod9ztxrxfm7jexjyfd
