Intent Driven Design Preview

[Richard.stubley]

Hi everyone,

I’m extremely excited to announce the public preview of Intent-Driven Design in Fusion.

Fusion has always supported both internal and external modelling, but it has historically defaulted to internal. With this preview, we are bringing external workflows to the forefront,  making them just as visible, intuitive, and easy to use as internal modelling.

Parts and Assemblies introduce a clearer and more guided way to work externally by default, helping you build structure, clarity, and intent directly into your designs.

A Hybrid Design approach is what you know and use in Fusion today. Defaulting to Internal modeling with External Still possible and viable. 

What is Intent-Driven Design?

Intent-Driven Design allows you to explicitly declare the design intent between your parts, assemblies, or hybrid designs. This gives you focused, task-specific workflows and a much clearer understanding of how your design is meant to behave and be structured.

Why are we doing this?

We want Fusion assemblies to be easier and more intuitive than ever.

This work directly addresses long-standing confusion around assemblies, especially for users trying to build structured designs using bodies instead of components.

Our goal is to finally put an end to the infamous “rule number one” confusion and give you workflows that guide you naturally toward best practices.

This project has been in development with our Insider community for about six months, and I’m incredibly excited that it’s now ready for public preview so all of you can see what’s coming.

There’s a lot more we could say about the intricacies of this new workflow, but here is a detailed blog post: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/intent-driven-design/

Please turn the preview on and get an early look. I look forward to getting into the details!

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @djlunty,

Thank you very much for the feedback — it’s always genuinely appreciated. I definitely hear you that your workflow is primarily hybrid, and I understand how the prompt can feel like an unnecessary interruption when you already know exactly how you want to begin your work.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing a bit more about what you do and how you use Fusion day to day, that would be extremely helpful. Our user base spans a huge range — from people who dip in occasionally for personal projects, to professionals using Fusion eight hours a day in production environments. Understanding that context makes a big difference when we’re evaluating UX changes and trying to balance needs across such a wide audience.

I also want to address your comment about “the rest of us carrying on as we always have” with hybrid. That’s actually one of the key reasons hybrid remains a top-level option, and why it can be set as your preferred default. I do want to be clear though: there isn’t an option to permanently suppress the prompt. That’s intentional, and there are a few reasons behind it.

Earlier in the design process, hybrid wasn’t going to be on that top level at all. After extensive user testing, we brought it forward specifically so existing workflows would remain intact. I will absolutely take responsibility for the one extra click that’s now required when creating a new document — even when hybrid is already pre-selected. The reason for that choice is tied to our longer-term vision for how Fusion starts up.

Most of the time, when people open Fusion, they’re not immediately creating something new — they’re returning to a previous document. We want to shift Fusion toward more of a landing-page experience, with quicker access to recent work, pinned or favourited projects, and a faster path for those times when you do want to start fresh. I don’t have mock-ups to share just yet, but that’s the direction we’re heading, and it's why we chose not to include a “never show this again” option. If the prompt could be dismissed permanently, many users would lose the ability to easily get it back.

A small tip: when Fusion launches, you can click anywhere to dismiss the prompt instantly — no need to hit Cancel. And pressing Ctrl+N will open your default document type without showing the prompt at all. So there are ways to keep it minimally invasive if you prefer.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts — it really does help, and I hope this provides a bit more clarity on the thinking behind the change.

[djlunty]

@Richard.stubley Thank you for the detailed reply.  I would be what you would call a hobby user (retired).  I am generally on Fusion three to four days a week for a couple of hours.  I design and build wood working projects (currently making kinetic sculptures).  This involves a lot of trial and error - make changes to the model and then see if it runs after cutting new parts on a CNC.  No collaboration - just me.  Most of the time when I go into Fusion it is to revise and change something in an existing model.  All my work has been and will continue to be hybrid.  In my previous job that paid the bills, the objective and instructions to our IT staff was to accomplish a task with as few keystrokes / mouse clicks as possible and still provide the necessary options to carry out a task.  Perhaps the new landing page you refer to will make this a reality.

[jhackney1972]

If and when Intent-Driven Design becomes a full time designing process in Fusion, I would like to request a small UI change.  When you are in the Assembly Design mode and click on the New Component icon you get the New Component dialog box.  The change I would love to see is to make the Name entry box to be automatically highlighted and ready to type in the name.  Ninety percent of the time you will be entering a name and I often have to remind myself to highlight the box.

Edit; Also if and when the User Coordinate System preview becomes a permanent part of the Construction menu, please allow it to be enabled within the Part Design environment of the Intent-Driven Design.  It is only available in the preview when in both of the Assembly modes.  UCS coordinates are very useful in the layout of parts as well as in the assembly environment.

Thanks for you consideration.  I personally am finding this workflow very productive and efficient.

[jthompson]

Love the preview so far!

One thing that I've come across: The section view is unavailable when editing a part in place within the context of an assembly. Was this design decision, or a just a bug in the preview?

If intentional, I would prefer to section one part in an assembly, and leave other components whole.

Just my two cents.

Thanks!

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @jhackney1972,

Good idea on entering the name first, I'll check it wouldn't have any adverse effects and see when we can implement it. 

Regarding the UCS, that's still a little further behind the release than Intent Driven Design. I'll make check up with the team implementing that to ensure it's available in all the workspaces come full release. 

[Richard.stubley]

Hi @jthompson 

Great to hear you are loving the new experiences. 

EIP has been a subset of commands for a while now and we have had a huge push this year to reduce that so EIP is just as feature rich as opening and working on a component in it's own document, we have implemented about 35 commands so far this year. I know the analysis modes are being worked on now so I hope it won't be long before you can see it in an update. 
Regarding only sectioning the part you are EIP'ing, I'll have to double check the behaviour on that when it's available for me to test. 

Thank you for the feedback and keep it coming.

[jonvolk]

Deleted, found my answer. 

[ejensen29]

Some thoughts from an educator. I teach Fusion in a College setting and see this change a huge plus for novice users. I have used CAD since Catia came out, so when we I initially checked out Fusion I was taken aback by the default In context design workflow. But quickly adapted to it and use it 90% of the time.

But sorry, Components trip up students in a big way as new users. I will be teaching a class in January and plan to switch everyone to the new workflow if it is not in production yet. I will go back to the way I taught them when we were a Solidworks shop. What I like about this is, yes we will use the hybrid workflow to teach Top down design, but it will be intentional. More clear I hope.

PS: I'm glad to read in this thread that Assembly will move back onto the Hybrid Solid Toolbar in the production release. It's the only thing I saw as a miss with this update.

[jhackney1972]

If and when Intent Driven Design is implemented there is a problem with using the Derive function when used to insert "only" parameters into an existing design.  It will only work if the model has at least one other feature such as a sketch or body.  It will not derive just parameters into an existing design.  This feature is very important in the design process and works perfectly when the Intent Driven Design preview is not turned on.

[Christoph_360]

Hello

I really like the new ASSEMBLY Tab in Hybrid Design; the User Interface now appears much more structured.

I don't yet see the point of being able to choose between Part Design, Assembly Design, and Hybrid Design.

Thanks

Christoph

[jhackney1972]

In Intent Driven Design, if you add a Joint Origin to a component created as a Part Design from the Create menu, you CANNOT come back and edit its properties once it is placed.  If you need to change its properties you have to delete it and replace it with another which probably will mess up downstream joints.

The first screen capture shows the command I am using and the second screen capture show all the options when you right click on it, Edit is not one of them.  This menu is all you get if you are Editing in Place or you actually Open the component and either right click on the Joint Origin in the Browser or the Timeline.

This must be addressed if Intent Driven Design becomes a standard.

[swapnil.hamdapureDDSVZ]

Hi @jhackney1972 , Thank you for your observation about the joint origin. We already fixed the issue, and the edit option will be available for the user.

[fabrice.buhl]

I would like also to express my feedback about this feature.

I have been using Fusion almost since the very beginning. I have also been working in CAD for over 20 years, across many different CAD systems.

Seeing this screen at startup gives me the feeling of using a non‑professional, DIY‑oriented piece of software rather than a professional tool. On a personal level, I find this new screen to be a workflow blocker. When I want to design something, it is usually because I am in the middle of an idea and want to start immediately. This window interrupts that process and breaks my concentration.

Could you please add a checkbox in Preferences, just below “Default design type”, allowing this window to be disabled or a choice in the drop down menu like "ask every startup" and then when you choose something else, this screen doesn't appear? If I have already selected my default design type in preferences, I do not see the benefit of having to choose it again at every startup. It only adds an unnecessary step and causes me to lose my train of thought.

I look forward to your reply.