NASA JPL X Adobe Hackathon
Background
In 2021 I participated in the NASA JPL x Adobe XD hackathon where I teamed up with another UX designer to design a digital experience to solve a NASA-inspired space challenge. Neither of us had much experience using Adobe XD.
The prompt was to design an iPad app that teaches and inspires 11 to 13-year-old kids about NASA and JPL missions.
Problem
Kids can easily be overwhelmed and intimidated by the complexities and details of NASA JPL missions.
Role: UX/UI Designer
Timeline: 7 days
Tools: Pen, paper, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD
Solution
An iPad app that uses gamification to foster learning by doing instead of traditional learning methods like studying and quizzes.
Process
Kickoff meeting
On the day we received the brief my teammate and I held our kickoff meeting to get us aligned on the project and define how we’d proceed. We went over project goals, constraints, and how we would determine what a “finished project” would be.
Keeping timeframe in mind, personal constraints were important to consider as we were both already overloaded with work and school. Flexibility and working asynchronously was crucial. We established that we would have daily stand-ups detailing what we accomplished the previous day, our tasks for the current day, and any roadblocks we were possibly facing that would interfere with our goals.
Mars rover Perseverance fully constructed in Figma
Research
According to the brief, we were to design for 11-13-year-old kids but we needed to know more about them. How do they learn best? What problems do kids that age face when learning? What areas of their learning experience are their opportunities in, and what other apps do kids these ages have on their iPads?
Additionally -
How does NASA currently address that audience? What information does NASA want that audience to know and how do they deliver that information?
For this project, we designed primarily based on assumptions but we were able to interview a small sample of kids in middle school and we learned a lot about how NASA currently attempts to educate that audience.
User profiles with the rover “badge” awarded for completing the Mars Rover Perseverance Mission (under specific conditions).
GAMES!!!!
We assumed that creating games to help educate kids about NASA JPL missions was the way to go. To validate this we conducted online research about gamification and its educational benefits. We also researched how NASA currently approaches education for young humans.
Talking with a small number of middle schoolers paired with the information we found online, we felt confident enough to proceed with creating a game-centered iPad app for kids.
With the insights we gained from researching NASA’s approach to education, we decided that these games were to focus heavily on robotics due to NASA’s current approach to space exploration.
Scope
Both myself and my partner are massive space enthusiasts and passionate about space exploration - because of this, we had big ideas about where we could take this project.
We created a UI library where we gathered screenshots from competitor apps and websites that focused on educating society about space and even incorporated some video game UI to help inspire us with ideas for a visual interface.
We went through the library and sketched out visual ideas and flows and quickly weeded out ideas using an impact/effort matrix.
Due to constraints, a lot of the designs we were excited to make were simply not feasible. We needed to keep it simple for now and come up with an MVP as much as we wanted to go all out.
We really wanted to spend more time on this project and fine-tune the UI but we both agreed if we wanted to stay aligned, the UI would have to be kept at a minimum.
An augmented reality approach was one of our favorite ideas that we wanted to pursue. While fun and helpful for learning from observation, we decided that creating an AR experience would not directly align with user goals and could not be designed and prototyped effectively within the time constraints.
Staying aligned
In order to stay focused on creating an MVP and define the screens we needed to design, we created a simple task flow focusing on one path a user could take through the interface.
Wireframes
We started off by setting a timer for 8 minutes and rapidly ideating with pen and paper over a slack video session. When time was up, we compared our ideas and critiqued them based on our goals for the app. My partner then started creating digital wireframes of some of the main pages while I started looking for images and creating the interface for our Mars Perseverance Rover game.
We decided that there was a fine line between an interface built for a child and an interface built for a middle schooler and we tried to demonstrate that in our design.
Prototype
We completed the prototype the day before the project was due and while we tried to get our prototype in front of an 11-13-year-old audience for usability testing, we were unable to do so.
With limited time and resources, we reached out to our personal networks for usability testing so that we could iterate.
Final Notes
Both my partner and I were proud of what we accomplished given our hectic schedules outside of this project and limited knowledge of Adobe XD, but there were a lot of things we wish we had time to do.
We would have loved to do more user interviews with kids so that we could validate or invalidate some of the assumptions we were making.
We originally wanted to make the entire experience a game. For example, instead of users simply scrolling and tapping on the planet they wanted to learn more about, they’d have to “fly” there. Users would tilt their devices to navigate through the solar system.
We also wanted the users to be able to examine technology using AR so they could rotate and observe JPL technologies more interactively.
Our hope for both of these was that adding more interaction to the interface would create more retention and more excitement with users. However, designing both of these required much more effort than we had time for.
One of our biggest regrets was not being able to test the prototype in front of our target audience. It’s also important to note that the prototype was our first iteration and we both expected that given more time for ideation and testing, the interface would naturally evolve into something different than what was turned in.
Participating in a design challenge with another teammate was such a valuable experience. Working under pressure and with different schedules was a welcomed challenge for both of us. It was also beneficial to work with someone who had different design perspectives and skills. It was very exciting to be working on such an important project and it was fulfilling to be working with someone equally passionate about human space exploration.
Thanks for reading ✌️