Role UX Designer
Duration 1 week
Responsibilities Conduct user and content research, UI design, animation, prototype
Adobe X NASA JPL Creative Jam
In May 2021, I teamed up with fellow UX Designer and General Assembly graduate Jin-Hong Jung to participate in the NASA JPL x Adobe Creative Jam. Over 7 days, we designed and prototyped a tablet app with the objective of educating 11-13 year olds on NASA JPL missions and discoveries.
As Top 10 finalists, we were invited to present our work to a virtual audience of 600+ as well as a panel of three judges which consisted of Krys Blackwood (NASA JPL), Jared Spool (Centre Center), and Shannon Slocum (Adobe).
We walked away from this Creative Jam as 4th Place winners out of 173 submissions.
The Prototype
In a few days, our team designed a game that focused on acquainting users with the solar system and educating users on equipment and scientific work involved with the Mars 2020 mission.
In this prototype, we concentrated our efforts on Mars. Through animated transitions, we want users to learn the position of Mars in the solar system relative to other planets.
Enjoy!
Research and Discovery
Jin-Hong Jun was most recently a behavior psychologist that worked with children with developmental challenges, so his knowledge on information intake patterns for 11-13 year old tweens came in handy. We designed an interaction and animation-heavy game with a reward system where users level up after each successful task.
We had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Emily Cardarelli, a NASA JPL scientist who is on the Mars 2020 team. She provided valuable insight to the takeaways that she wants students to learn about. She informed us that rock and landscape analysis plays a big part in discovering signs of life on Mars, which is the main mission of Mars 2020. The Perseverance Rover is equipped with various scientific apparatus that enables the collection of Mars samples to be returned to Earth for further analysis.
Based on our conversation with Dr. Cardarelli, we came up with two activities:
1. Build Your Rover
2. Discover Rocks
In Build Your Rover, users match parts of the Perseverance Rover to its appropriate position. Users are then provided with a description of the functions of various apparatuses to learn how they contribute to the objective of Mars 2020.
In Discover Rocks, users are presented with a photo and they are to determine whether the photo was taken on Earth or on Mars. We found that many photos of Mars look remarkably similar to Earth landscapes that one might find in Utah and Arizona. Having users try to differentiate between the two planets teaches them why scientists might think they can find signs of life on Mars.
