Autodesk is a software company specializing in design, engineering, and entertainment solutions. In certain cases, Autodesk offers free access for a limited time. To support education and learning, students and teachers are granted access for the duration of their academic term. Users who have never used our software can try it for 30 days through a free trial.
Previously, there was no system in place to verify if a customer was qualified for free access to our software. Some users took advantage by creating new accounts to obtain multiple trials, while others submitted fake school information to gain educational access.
Additionally, the sign-up process was complicated, lengthy, and disjointed. The existing experience had been developed by multiple teams, each owning different parts of the process. This led to unnecessary repetition and inconsistent visual styles throughout.
My role was to analyze all the different sign-up experiences on our site and consolidate them into a single, consistent process. To foster an inclusive environment, I involved stakeholders early and often throughout the process, collaborating closely with members from business, marketing, research, and engineering teams.
From identifying feature gaps with product managers to assessing technical limitations with developers, I collaborated with various teams to understand the challenges our customers faced. Creating a competitive analysis helped to benchmark our experience against industry leaders. An common practices we observed was either requiring a phone number or credit card to prevent users from creating multiple accounts.
Our data analytics team observed significant user drop-offs early in the sign-up flow, with many users redirecting themselves to other sign-up flows. We hypothesized that these users were confused by the terminology of "free trial" versus "education access." Working with the research team, we conducted A/B tests to introduce an off-ramp link in both sign-up experiences, guiding users to the appropriate path. From customer surveys and interviews, we learned that much of the frustration stemmed from how long it took to complete the sign-up process.
After completing our discovery phase, we organized the findings through a workshop with stakeholders to prioritize the most critical issues and define how we would address them. Using a priority matrix, we aligned on which components would deliver the most impact relative to the effort required to implement them.
Starting with low-fidelity designs, I quickly mocked up different layouts for the page while removing any "optional" fields to reduce the number of steps. To verify education users, we collaborated with a third-party vendor to integrate their API into our sign-up process. Using the information provided by users, we could cross-check their database to confirm if the student or teacher was currently enrolled in an educational institution.
Testing began as early as the discovery phase. Working with our research team, we developed a list of test ideas and determined whether to test them qualitatively or quantitatively.
After multiple rounds of design and testing, our final design featured a simplified and consistent sign-up flow. A dual-column layout was introduced, with the left column for entering customer details and the right column providing a quick overview and relevant information. By reducing the steps to four and cutting the number of fields by 50% compared to the previous experience, users could complete the sign-up process more efficiently.
The new design introduced a gating system that significantly improved the overall sign-up experience. While sign-up numbers decreased as expected, the conversion rate increased by 13%. Support cases dropped by 8%, and the marketing team could better allocate their resources to engage with qualified users.
