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UX Research

Revit Usability Testing

Evaluate the usability of Revit, particularly the Properties Palette, from a novice to intermediate user perspective

Client / 

Autodesk

Role / 

UX Researcher

Agency / 

UMSI

Year / 

2020

Overview

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Autodesk Revit is a building information modelling (BIM) software for architects, landscape architects, structural engineers, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers, designers, and contractors. The software allows users to design a structure and its components in 3D, annotate the model with 2D drafting elements, and access building information from the building model's database.

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Our team has been tasked with evaluating the Properties Palette within Revit. To effectively do so our team conducted usability testing focusing on the use of the Properties Palette during normal workflows. The purpose of this particular study was to observe how the Properties Palette is utilized and look for any pain points or areas where the Properties Palette could be improved.

Process

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Our team utilized four main methods to learn about real user experiences with the product so that we could provide recommendations to Autodesk. After meeting with the UX team for Revit and familiarizing ourselves with the product and market space, we conducted a series of interviews with novice, intermediate, and expert users. Using what we learned from the interviews, we designed and conducted a survey through Qualtrics to reach a larger user base and gather more data on problems identified in the interviews. After analyzing the data, we confirmed the presence and severity of certain issues through a heuristic analysis of the software. Our final method was to conduct observational user testing to see what it looks like when our target users run into problems, and what they try to do as remedies. The findings and recommendations from each of these methods can be found below.

Interviews

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Findings

  • Students prefer using software that they are familiar with, and most do not learn Revit since it is not required for their coursework.

  • Users prefer learning Revit in structured environments, like workshops.

  • Users consult video tutorials and forums when troubleshooting issues in Revit, rather than referring to Autodesk’s official help documentation.

  • Users find the Properties Palette helpful and often necessary for their work, however, there is a lack of visual feedback when manipulating elements within the palette. 

 

Recommendations

  • Work with schools to include Revit in course curricula as a means to give students experience working with Revit

  • Increase opportunities to learn Revit in structured settings, like workshops.

  • Guide users to Autodesk's official help documentation while using Revit.

  • Improve the visual indicators and visual feedback of the Properties Palette.

Survey

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Findings

  • When comparing general UI characteristics most important to users to that of how Revit’s Properties Palette scored in terms of satisfaction, the largest areas of potential improvement lie in making the Palette easier to use while maintaining a clean, organized layout.

  • Regardless of profession, users across the board generally regard Revit as an extremely essential product in their respective fields.

  • By and large, most of the specific suggestions/recommendations for the Properties Palette made by respondents fell under usability or display improvements. 

 

Recommendations

  • Add more visual hierarchy and separation between sections within the Properties Palette

  • Allow users to customize the display of the Properties Palette

  • Fix Properties Palette display issues on multi-display setups

Heuristic Analysis

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Findings

  • It is not visually clear which object on the canvas is being edited by the Properties Palette

  • When some properties are changed, the targeted object does not visually change

  • The input type for most input fields is not shown until the field is active

  • At times, UI elements become unavailable and greyed out, with little indication of how to make the items available

 

Recommendations

  • Add stronger visual cues to make it more clear which object on the canvas is being targeted by the Properties Palette

  • Add visual indicators to all input fields to show the input type for each field

  • Add a popup window showing the changes being made to an object targeted by the Properties Palette

  • Add mouse-over popups to greyed out UI elements explaining how to make them available

Observational User Testing

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Findings

  • Revit can be installed without families needed to complete simple projects

  • It is not clear to users why greyed-out buttons and options are not available

  • Visual indications of whether a user is in an “Edit Mode” are lacking

 

Recommendations

  • Suggest commonly-used families and toolkits to users during program installation

  • Warn users if their installation does not include commonly-used families and toolkits

  • When asking users to load a family, direct users to the default folder where families are saved

  • Add tooltips to unavailable tools to indicate what requirements must be met to make them available

  • Add robust tooltip descriptions on hover for unavailable items

  • Highlight the target object when in “Edit Mode”

  • Allow users to exit “Edit Mode” with ESC and a prompt to save or discard changes

Notable Personal Contributions

Due to a miscommunication between the client and course staff, our team was given this project working on a software made only for Windows devices. As the only team member with a Windows computer, I was the first to familiarize myself with the software and took the lead when our team needed to work within the software, such as when we were designing tasks for our usability tests.

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I participated in two of our four interviews, including one which I completed without a notetaker due to a scheduling conflict with team members and our interviewee.

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I led the design of our interview protocol questions focused on how the interviewee used the software, and also led the design of the tasks for our usability testing.

What I Learned

This project required our team to make rapid and sudden adjustments to our planning and schedule, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck halfway through the semester. We were forced to adjust to online instruction and find ways to work together remotely. In addition, we had to re-plan our usability testing as we could not utilize the University's user testing facility and had to coordinate with participants to conduct the testing remotely. These issues showed me the importance of thinking quickly on my feet and being prepared for plans to fall through. When we encountered issues, we did not dwell on lost work or missed opportunities, and successfully pivoted to deliver our best work to the client.

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I also gained insight into the value of UX consultants in software design. While the product we worked on is used almost exclusively by trained architects, our team and our contacts on the Autodesk UX team had almost no architecture experience. I learned that as a UX researcher and designer, I don't need to be an expert in a field to help improve the user experience. Expertise is certainly a blessing, but my team and I were able to provide valuable usability research to the client without bogging our project down learning about architecture, as we could learn about and understand the user experience by talking with and observing the users who do have that expertise.

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