Orion
For this challenge, I worked with a partner to design a functional prototype in an Adobe Creative Jam sponsored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Orion's aim is to inspire the next generation of scientists. We purposefully included multiple modes of learning to allow users to follow their curiosity and explore, providing a contrast to structured learning in school.
Tools:
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AdobeXD (It's an Adobe competition, after all!)
My roles in the project:
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User Researcher
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User Experience Designer
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User Interface Designer
Duration:
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7 Days
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01
Understand
I was excited to work with a partner for this Adobe Creative Jam. We knew we wanted to complete our project in 6 days, giving us one flex day, and immediately created a crunched timeline. We still prioritized fully empathizing with our prospective users and set out to understand the problem at hand.
Empathize
When first getting briefed on the project, we were given a presentation by a NASA JPL spokesperson that spoke passionately about the changes in role models for kids in recent years. Nowadays, not enough kids want to be astronauts when they grow up. Kids are often preoccupied with fast, vapid entertainment, and fewer kids are feeling inspired to pursue the sciences.
My partner and I understood this as an issue of exposure--we saw that kids needed a meaningful and engaging way to learn about current space exploration work so that they can be inspired to grow up to become future science leaders.
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Problem
Statement
Families and educators who feel concerned that kids aren’t excited by space exploration need engaging and meaningful academic resources, but want to ensure it is both inspiring and educational for their kids.
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02
Research
Our competitive analysis profiled six different applications available to middle-school aged children. The first three selected are likely to be direct competitors to Orion, while the latter three have similar audiences, are more likely to be indirect competitors because of their different content.
Competitive Analysis
The information pulled for this competitive analysis was compiled by my partner. Her work on the following slides helped inform our interview questions and later user flows.
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03
Point of View
My partner and I understood that although the primary target audience of Orion was to be middle-school-aged children, it would be important to also gain the perspective of their teachers and guardians, as they were likely the ones to connect kids with new educational apps and electronic devices.
Persona Creation
After meeting and synthesizing the information gathered by our interviews, we made three personas to guide the creation of Orion. We knew that although the primary target audience was middle-schoolers, our application still needed to have certain appeals to middle-school science teachers as well as the guardians of middle schoolers in order to thrive.
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Personas
04
Ideate
Although there are three different user personas, we knew that Emma would be the primary user of our app. We built out our personas' user journeys, paying special attention to how the middle-school-users would access and find the app for the first time.
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User Journey Maps
User Task Flows
Focusing on how Emma may use the app, my partner and I sketched out user flows that would represent three likely actions for a middle school student to follow.
The selected tasks should reflect:
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Something Emma wants to do on her own,
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Something Emma's guardian encouraged her to do together, and
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Something Emma's science teacher asked her to do for a school project.
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05
Sketch
My partner and I first agreed upon a navigation layout together, and then I took about an hour to quickly sketch out a low-fidelity outline of the pages Emma would encounter while completing her tasks.
Low-Fidelity
Prototype
1.1 Dash has featured content
1.2 Hamburger menu with glass background
2.1 Friends list, option to play together
2.2 Confirm game lobby
2.3 Select game
2.4 Play the game!
3.1 Explore - Offline learning resources
3.2 Museum Connect and new events
3.3 Meteor shower livestream
4.1 Saved favorites board
4.2 Create a project pop-up
4.3 Blank project board
5.1 Search for keyword
5.2 View searched for video
5.3 Save video pop-up
5.4 View searched for article
Mid-Fidelity
Prototype
1.1 Dash has featured content
2.1 Friends list, option to play together
3.1 Explore Offline Activites
4.1 Project Boards and favorites
1.2 Hamburger menu with glass background
2.2 Play the game
3.2 Museum activities near you
4.2 Blank new project board
3.3 Stream the meteor shower
4.3 Search results
User
Testing
We used AdobeXD to perform 3 user tests soon after completing our mid-fidelity prototype. We tested the same three main tasks: play a game, share a link to a meteor shower stream, and add a video and article to a favorites board. Our testers helped us identify a few immediate changes we could make to clarify our designs:
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Change “Favorites” to Projects
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Add search icon to all top bars
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Change “Offline Activities” to “Explore”
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Simplify navigation (re-evaluate priorities)
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Make all screens landscape first
06
Style
Before committing to our final changes, my partner and I took time to collaborate remotely using AdobeXD. We discussed different imagery, colors, and fonts that would best attract our target audience, be accessible, and feel exciting and inspiring.
Style
Guide
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06
Prototype
Having a week and one partner to go from an idea to a working prototype was a big task! The working prototype below features bright illustrations that make it dynamic and playful. The simplified navigation should be easy to use for middle schoolers, guardians, and teachers.
High-Fidelity
Prototype
1.1 Dash has featured content
2.1 Games
1.2 Search bar opens up to input box
3.1 Explore
1.3 User icon has a dropdown menu
4.1 Project Boards
Final Prototype
Our final presentation of our project for the Adobe Creative Jam is available if you click the image. Users can find a game to play with friends, save and keep favorite videos and articles, explore local events at nearby museums and more.
There were 525 competing teams in the creative jam. Although my partner and I did not win the competition, our crunched timeline of completing our application in 6 days instead of 7 paid off! We were awarded 6 months of Adobe Stock for being one of the first teams to turn in a qualifying project.
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Final Thoughts
If my partner and I had more time for the Creative Jam Competition, we wanted to build out more games for our users to play and test. Among our ideas were digital circuit building games, competitions to calculate the force needed to launch your friends off of different planets, and space trivia.
NASA's Orion spacecraft missions will eventually take humankind to the moon, Mars, and farther than any human has ever been before. I proposed to name our app after the spacecraft missions because I felt such a spark when learning about the missions myself, and I hoped to share my inspiration through design.
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