Starlight

Have you ever looked up to the sky and gotten fascinated by the star; you wonder what they are, why they shine; you think of the bigger world, the universe, and wonder how it works. You may even search your question, but soon get frustrated by the obscure science and just give up on your exploration?

Here we create the App Starlight, an easily accessible app with gamified features to help teenagers & adults to learn about space in a fun and engaging way.

Competitive Analysis

User Research

We conducted a user survey of 40 people on a convenience basis. Although most survey-takers are young adults, which are not exactly our primary target, they’re also an important part of our target user and their responses show some very valuable patterns; plus, they could provide potentially more thoughtful answers than teenagers.

In our additional user interview, we covered teenage interviewees who are in middle and high school and gathered their perspectives as well.

Takeaways

1. Provide Motivation

Most people are at least somehow interested in Astronomy but only a small proportion of people are highly passionate about the topic. Passionate people may intrinsically motivate themselves to learn, but others may need to be provided with some extrinsic motivation. Lack of motivation is also identified as one of the most important obstacles to learning effectively with a learning App.

2. Broad Interests

People show diverse interests in Astronomy-related topics.

3. Keep sessions short

A majority of people are willing to use an educational app for a relatively short chunk of time or in fragmented times.

Interview
Findings

People may like some features that are related to everyday life.
Interactivity and hands-on experiment help people learn science.
Visual and audio feedback will also help.

Pain Points

01

Hard to find good resources that help people get into Astronomy step-by-step.

02

Many resources are textbook-like that are hard to swallow for beginners and not very engaging.

03

Not enough motivation to keep up with learning.

User Personas

User Empathy

This video introduces how the features of StarLight engage a novice user, keep him motivated to learn, and help him develop an interest in Astronomy in the long run.

Idealation Sketches

Design System

User Flow

Prototype

Profile Creation

Provide Motivation

People are more likely to devote time and effort when they feel a personal connection with and ownership of something. Therefore we allow users to create their avatars to increase their engagement with the App.

You can also try the avatar maker here!

Personalize Options

Users can provide their education level and fields of interest so Staright can create a set of courses personally made for them.

Main Screen

Course Map

Short Courses are presented as a map to visualize users' learning process as well as evoke the feeling of accomplishment when they complete the course. Users can choose their learning subject on demand.

Capstone Quiz

Mini quizzes can help users check their learning progress and enhance knowledge. Users can add questions or courses to their collection for further review.

Challenge

Daily Tasks

Mini challenges that refresh daily to provide some instructions if users are not sure what to do.

Achievements

Reward users for their progress and explorations. Each achievement is available for multiple levels to set continuous goals for users. Users can choose the achievement badges they like the most and wear them on their profiles.

Profile

My Profile

Alongside viewing their avatar, users can also see their detailed learning status on the profile page. A calendar feature is also available to visualize the user’s learning rhythm.

Social Feature

Users can add or invite friends to learn with them. Once add someone as a friend, users can see their current learning activity. A leaderboard feature would also motivate our users a bit from a social perspective.

Item Shop

Users can use the star coin they get from all kinds of learning activities to unlock accessories that decorate their avatar or boosters that enhance performance.

Explore

The explore function provides users with the latest Astronomy news, celestrial event report, and regulaly updated topics. Users may also use the AR stargaze function to recognize the stars around them!

Usability Testing and Revisions

We conducted three usability tests with prospect users, two via zoom and one face-to-face. It was good to know that testers found our App intuitive and easy to use in general. Our testers also helped us find some major flaws in our early prototype for later revision.

Main Map:
"Can I click this? Where should I go?”

We want to visualize the user’s learning progress as moving through checkpoints on a map. However, in our previous version, we didn’t make the progress route clear and distinguish between available and unavailable options. Plus, users want to have some hint on what the lesson will be about before clicking on them.

In the revision, we connected checkpoints with a dotted line, differentiate unavailable options by making them monotone, and add a topic icon that indicates the content of each lesson.

Friend Map Feature:
“What is this for again?”

In our early ideations, we wish to add more community engagement features. One idea we had was to allow users to check their friend’s location on a map and view what Astronomical events are happening at that place.

However, users showed confusion on this feature and expressed their privacy concerns: they’re ok if we Ask their location when they’re using the stargazing function, but not so much with sharing their location with strangers.

After another round of a brief survey, we found similar concerns in many other people. We respect users’ privacy, especially considering that our primary targets are teenagers. That’s why we decided to remove this feature.

Daily Tasks:
“I want some quick achievements in my grasp!”

We also find that users may find some achievements intimidating and hard to achieve. This inspired us to add a daily task section to give users some quick positive feedback and a breakdown of some grand challenges.

What I Learned

01

Think for the audience

I know it’s a bit cliché to mention it here since it should be a very essential part of UI UX design already. However, the interesting part is that I realize designers should extend beyond the design stage. I was proud of the survey questioner we sent. We know that we’re not so patient to fill a questioner that’s full of questions hard to answer and goes on and on. So we start with making up a list of potential questions and pick the most useful and precise ones. We also compost our questioner with mostly multiple-choice questions and acknowledge people the expected time to finish the survey. These helped us get a pretty good response rate.

02

Run test, ask for clarification, do not assume.

Another thing I learn is to never assume. As designers we know well about the design we create, however it would be better not to assume users have the same understanding of the design we created. The same principle should also apply to asking questions. For example, when we ask people if they feel educational Apps are effective, we need to ask for clarification on in what way they recognize an educational app as effective.

02

Team Work

The project is my personal expansion on a group project I created. this is the first comprehensive UX project I work with a team. I learned a lot in the process of leading a small team while covering different roles. If there's one thing I could ha improve would be my project management skill. I think I did well update the list of work we need at every stage., However, it would be better if we created a timeline for work and set expectations clear.