Space Travel App Design and Evaluation

Background

Problem Statement: With the costs of space travel continuing to fall, and the rise of private spaceflight companies, interplanetary travel is likely to soon become a reality. Travelers will need technology support through interplanetary travel. Thus, we conducted user research to (1) identify user needs of this companion app, and (2) improved the space vacation companion app to provide a better user experience.

Research Goals:

• Collect user needs for future space travels
• Develop a product based on user needs
• Improve user experience using usability testing methods

Methods

1. Lab Usability Testing

   • Measurements: Time on task; Number of clicks; SUS (System Usability Scale).

2. Semi-structured Interview

   • Participant recruiting: snowball sampling method.
   • Affinity Diagram was applied to identify the major user needs of the app.

   The diagram was created by the team together: each team member (1) pulled out the main themes from the interview responses, (2) put them on digital cards, and (3) discuss and group them through the iteration process.

   

3. Survey

   • Sample questions:

4. Persona

   Four personas were created based on the feedback and responses from the user interview research, which helped us to be aware of what kind of people the app is designed for. Below is one example of the personas.

   

5. User Journey Map

To model user experience in using the spaecation app, I created a user journey map that describes users' needs.

Research Impact

• Generative research: We conducted user interviews with 13 participants to identify user needs as an initial step:

  1. A survey was applied as the first step to identify our target users (e.g., people who are interested in space travel), with whom we conducted the interviews.

  2. The user interviews informed the foundational design of the app by identifying the main functionalities/features needed in the app.

     • what main features should be included in the app
     • what the sub-features should be under each feature

• Evaluative research: We used usability testing to evaluate the usability and effiency of the digital prototype. The usability testing provided actionable insights on the design of the app:

  1. The trip and location categories have overlapped information. Users were confused about the information under each category.
  2. Several users had problems knowing whether the map could be further zoomed in or out.
  3. Some users struggled on using the map since they didn’t know the map could be dragged.

My Learnings

1. Lab Usability Testing

   • Measurements: Time on task; Number of clicks; SUS (System Usability Scale).
2. Semi-structured Interview

Slides: Spaecation App