Voyager for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Adobe Creative Jam
1 Week Design Sprint
2 Designers
Tools: Adobe XD, Photoshop, Figma
'Where humans cannot reach..."
What's our mission?
Adobe teamed up with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to put on a Creative Jam where teams had the opportunity to submit their designs and compete amongst other designers. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, founded in the 1930's, focuses on unmanned missions to the depths of the universe where humans have not yet had the chance to travel. It's through JPL's unmanned missions that NASA was formed and incredible discoveries have continued to push the boundaries of what our brains can comprehend.  
My partner and I were tasked with building  a third party app centered around one or more of the NASA JPL missions. The app must be a tablet experience that provides kids with a way to learn and share stories, facts, and topics in an engaging way.

Our goal in the following research is to understand how the middle school age brain works and to use those insights to design an experience that encourages the desire to learn and explore.
To begin our research, we wanted some background information by doing a competitive and comparative analysis of the other apps and resources currently out there that educate about NASA. during this process, we found that many of the existing apps in the realm of space exploration are really outdated and are not engaging or intuitive to navigate through.
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We also wanted to gain a better understanding for how the middle school age brain functions. During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex begins to develop. This area, right behind your forehead, is responsible for so many important things. Some of which include, the ability to discern certain social cues, the ability to control impulses, and the ability to grasp more difficult concepts. Kids in the age group, start to question their roles in the world and are more likely to take a more active role in how they learn. By breaking tasks into more manageable pieces and incorporating learning breaks and memory recall games, kids are more likely to stay engaged
Background Research
Visual Developer

In the second part of our research, we decided to interview a group of 5 children that fit the age description to see how their real life lived experiences matched up with what science says. We asked questions focusing on educational apps to see what worked for them and what didn't and got responses like:
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"I don't like apps and games where it feels like I'm explicitly learning."
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"If I have something to work towards, I'm much more motivated."
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"Having learning apps that include lots of interesting colors and graphics, help me to pay attention more."

Meet Chelsea

Chelsea, "The Curious', is a 7th grader who is struggling with remote learning. She is, however, really motivated to learn new things and wants to share her knowledge with her classmates. She wants to be able to interact with her classmates and wants to learn her material in an engaging way. One in which she plays an active role rather than just listening to a lecture.

What's the problem?

Chelsea needs an engaging way to learn about JPL missions because remote learning can be disconnecting and un-motivating.

How might we....

-HMW design an app that is visually appealing and engaging to middle schoolers?
- HMW create a sense of community in a remote and digital setting?
- HMW create a learning experience that is different from just reading a textbook or listening to a teacher's lecture?

Design, Design, Design

To address our HMW and problem statements, we knew we needed a way for the kids to feel like they were working towards a goal. We also wanted them to feel encouraged by their communities so we set out with the idea of making is more of a class room setting as opposed to an individual experience. Bring on the sketching.

In this interactive classroom setting, they could compete in games and earn points to rank themselves against their classmates. Then there was the questions of how the material would be learned. How could we present the information in a way that was not boring and encourages the user to keep exploring. Like on the JPL website, there is a function for the learner to choose the specific area of space they want to focus in on (galaxies, black holes, stars, etc.). we thought to include something like this to break down the missions and allow kids to have more autonomy over their learning experience.

On the individual mission pages, the learner is presented information in manageable chunks alongside graphics that help to visually depict what they are learning. Within each page of information, the user has the ability to share the most interesting concepts via private messenger to their classmates and friends.

Then, at the end, there is an interactive memory recall game that allows the user to reflect and accrue points. The user also has the ability to earn badges, but ultimately it's just another way to keep the user engaged and motivated.

Iterate, then do it again...

Due to our time constraints, there was not time to do as many iterations as we would have liked, but we were able to receive some feedback from our small round of usability testing.

Some of the changes we were able to make consisted of adjusting the speed of our animations and making them more smooth. The main dashboard page was initially very cluttered, so we removed some of the excess features to make the it more straightforward. Lastly, a user stated that they would like some sort of feedback regarding the addition or subtraction of points during the recall game.

View Prototype

What's on the horizon?

There is still so much opportunity for the app to be more cohesive. We would like to dedicate more time to the presentation of the information. Admittedly, we are not space experts, so knowing what to omit and include was a challenge. We also dedicated more time to the visual design elements due to the time constraints and the fact that it was an Adobe XD centered challenge. We would also like to add different types of games and recall exercises within all the missions as opposed to just the one type of quiz.

Ending thoughts...

This was a great learning experience for both my partner and I. It was the first time either of us had really spent an extended amount of time within Adobe XD and it was such a fun opportunity to play around with movement and animations. I personally did not have any expectations for myself other than to have fun and learn as much as I could in that one week period and I think both goals were accomplished. I look forward to the next Adobe Creative Jam and hope that I will be able to approach it with even more experience and knowledge.

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