I've always loved everything NASA. I think, in many ways, it represents not only the best of the U.S., but humanity at large. I remember in the 80s always wanting to go to their Space Summer Camp. Heck, I'd still go at my current old age!
That said, I feel their current app could use some love. Here's a little sneak peak of the direction I am headed.
I am asking myself these questions as I reimagine the NASA App:
-Why do people go to NASA.gov, let alone the mobile app (Why would YOU go to the NASA app?)
-What was the "Golden Age" of NASA? What made it so?
-When I think of NASA, what is the look and feel that inspires emotion?
-How can the app experience improve to be aesthetically pleasing but functional:
How can it be a useful tool to the young and old alike?
What are the tools and features that are useful?
How can users interact directly with NASA in a meaningful way?
First, some issues I have with the current app:
-Feels a bit cultured
-No real organization in terms of subjects
-Search-ability is hit and miss
-Doesn't "feel" like NASA. In design, there is a lot that goes into how something feels. The NASA app, for lack of a better word, doesn't feel right
-No ability to feel connected to NASA or really interact
Some thoughts going into redesigning the app:
-As I asked people (myself included) of why even use the NASA app, the answer is for knowledge. People want to know about America's space organization, the history, the people, the missions, the universe and more
-The "golden age" of NASA is late 60s with the success of the Apollo 11 mission to probably the 2000s at the height of the Space Shuttle program. 1976 also brought the real look of NASA together with the incredible branding guide.
-How would I like to interact and use the app? What would keep me both engaged and going back?
With all that in mind, here's a few slides of comparing the current app to my ideas and some other flows. Hope you find it interesting! Note: Still a large work in progress.
That said, I feel their current app could use some love. Here's a little sneak peak of the direction I am headed.
I am asking myself these questions as I reimagine the NASA App:
-Why do people go to NASA.gov, let alone the mobile app (Why would YOU go to the NASA app?)
-What was the "Golden Age" of NASA? What made it so?
-When I think of NASA, what is the look and feel that inspires emotion?
-How can the app experience improve to be aesthetically pleasing but functional:
How can it be a useful tool to the young and old alike?
What are the tools and features that are useful?
How can users interact directly with NASA in a meaningful way?
First, some issues I have with the current app:
-Feels a bit cultured
-No real organization in terms of subjects
-Search-ability is hit and miss
-Doesn't "feel" like NASA. In design, there is a lot that goes into how something feels. The NASA app, for lack of a better word, doesn't feel right
-No ability to feel connected to NASA or really interact
Some thoughts going into redesigning the app:
-As I asked people (myself included) of why even use the NASA app, the answer is for knowledge. People want to know about America's space organization, the history, the people, the missions, the universe and more
-The "golden age" of NASA is late 60s with the success of the Apollo 11 mission to probably the 2000s at the height of the Space Shuttle program. 1976 also brought the real look of NASA together with the incredible branding guide.
-How would I like to interact and use the app? What would keep me both engaged and going back?
With all that in mind, here's a few slides of comparing the current app to my ideas and some other flows. Hope you find it interesting! Note: Still a large work in progress.
As one can see by the example on the left of the current NASA app, there's wonky spacing, the background shows through on the header and footer, the cards are too much info at the same time and the separation feels overwhelming.
My approach on the right is to 1) adopt the classic NASA Standards Manual look and feel with a clean interface. Give it some personality with a space-themed font, organize main subjects (Like Astronauts, Engineers, Images, Missions etc) into easily definable cards. It also introduces the ability to make an account now and customize your experience (the Astronaut profile icon is a fun touch as well).
Let's take a deeper look into probably one of the most used items in the NASA app: Images. Currently, the left is what you get. No ability to search by a topic or search at all and it has limited categories. I updated the look and feel, expanded the topics and included a search filter. Next phase will be an actual side-panel filtering system for even more control. With your account, ideally you could even create your own experience where you can keep your favorited images.
Still on images, let's update the look and feel to UX some current UX standards. We don't want to the user to feel like they went somewhere else if they click on an image, which is how it currently looks/feels. The rating stars feels out of place and somewhat irrelevant to the user and the page has strange hierarchy for the related info. My proposed has a clean look, using a slide-up approach, the user know they are safely still in the image area and the information is presented in a cleaner fashion.
Another reason people use the NASA app is to better understand the history and missions of NASA. I went with an organized card approach on the main page to break it down by main topics, but once in those topics, this will obviously expand. For the Programs card, the user will then be treated with a breakdown of all the NASA programs and their related histories, images, personnel and more. Next, we will dive into this more looking at the Apollo Program:
Here we have a standard menu of options to choose from. Also incorporating those great, bold arrows from the NASA standards manual. Here, the user can pick what mission they want to learn more about
Apollo 11 seems like an obvious choice to dive into. I'd love to see this organized as mentioned above - Astronauts, Engineers (who don't get enough credit IMO), the flight plans and manuals, history, related photos and a synopsis.
To wrap up this current exercise, here's another example of information organization. If we click on Neil Armstrong, we get a nice card with a short bio, with the option to go to a new page for a full bio.
This was a fun project to reimagine and turn into something that I'd actually enjoy using. There's a lot more that I'd like to do and add some more creativity and interactivity to the app to really get people more involved in the NASA program. I hope you like what you see and stay tuned for more!