NASA JPL
Redesign

How can we engage interest in citizen astronomers?

NASA's original Exoplanet Watch site was lacking in user retention and participation, especially among beginners.

I worked with a team of other designers to make revisions for our client to the site, hoping to garner more attention from the general public.

How can the general public be more exposed to NASA's work with Exoplanets?

For one of my classes at UCLA, we were assigned a client at NASA JPL who came to us for a redesign of the Exoplanet Watch website. The goal was to make the site more user-friendly for the general public to increase participation by citizens, scientists, and professional astronomers alike.

To efficiently cover the scope of the project, my team and I divided ourselves into two groups: one for the EXOTIC Software and one for the design of the site. I was responsible for designing the wireframes for the "What is Exoplanet Watch?" and "How to Participate" pages as well interviewing a few participants.

Started with UX research by interviewing participants and creating wireframes based on their feedback

My team started by understanding the user's needs, and gathering feedback from various users.

• We had each participant go through a Google forms questionnaire that had a series of qualitative and quantitative questions.
• Next, a card sorting task was implemented to test the categories of each tab so that the content made sense and to identify any content gaps.
• Lastly, each interviewee went through a task analysis section where he or she was asked to (1) Freely browse the site, (2) Find the Slack/Newsletter, and (3) Find the EXOTIC Software.

After receiving the feedback from the user interviews, we organized our notes for each page.

Engagement, content organization, and page layout were lacking in the original design

Based on these notes, we identified the following common issues:

• Lack of engagement:
  Too much text also contributed to the lack of engagement, so more visuals and interactives would need to be added to increase and retain engagement.
  
• Lack of content organization:
  There were navigation issues due to the scattered information that made navigating the site confusing for users.
• Inconsistent page layout:
  The existing layout of each page seemed too confusing, especially for new users, overall making the site too confusing and leading users to be confused, overwhelmed, and uninterested.

We created a user persona to better understand the pain points of the site

To better understand the pain points, we created a persona that emulated a novice going through the Exoplanet Watch site.

A site map was made to demonstrate an improved flow betwen pages

The original site map showed little to no interactions or links between web pages and sections, which undermines user retention. The user interviews revealed that 31% of users felt overwhelmed and 15% were confused when navigating the site because there were many steps to participate and each step seems disconnected from the next.

The proposed site map is shown below. The Overview page acts as the landing page, so we created a pipeline that leads the user to the How to Participate page.

This new site map creates a journey out of the user experience as illustrated in the links between pages.

One way to increase engagement was to create a pop-up and additional section for the newsletter and Slack

The interviews revealed that over 80% of users were not interested in joining the Newsletter or Slack.

However, some of the users might be interested in joining if there were ways to get help in participating.

Our team came up with the following solutions to increase user retention and engagement:

We turned to Figma to make our recommendations come to life

‍What is Exoplanet Watch?👔🔍

The Problem

• The page was too text heavy.
• Interactives seemed to be eye-catching to users.
• More background info and high level info were needed.
• More engagement was needed from the user.

The Solution

‍How to Participate?👔🔍

The Problem

• The pages in this tab seemed too information heavy, but contained a mixture of content catered to novices and experts, showing a lack of consistency in copywriting and content organization.
• Participants are unable to follow the instructions to participate in research, with key info being mixed with excessive info.
• 21% of participants reported being unsure whether they needed a telescope to participate despite this fact appearing in multiple pages throughout this section.
• One astronomy professional stated the "How to submit data" page lacked content organization and engaging elements, triggering bored and discouraging emotions.
• 42% of users were not confident in finding the EXOTIC software, many of them confusing it with AAVSO.

The Solution

‍What to Observe?👔🔍

The Problem

• Most users thought this page was for experienced users or experts of astronomy, showing inconsistency.
• The Swarthmore Transit Finder (STF) is not beginner friendly.
• Many participants found it difficult to use the STF.

The Solution

Recommendations were also made for the Publications and Results page, but without wireframes due to time

Due to the shortage of time, our team was not able to create wireframes for the Publications and Results pages since it would have made our scope too large. Instead, we identified the problems of each page and made solutions that we recommended to the client.

‍Publications👔🔍

The Problem

• Due to the abundance in scientific terminology, many participants believed this page was for experienced users or experts.
• Users expected to see highlights of Exoplanet Watch participants' accomplishments (e.g. findings from research).
• Many users wanted to know more about how to publish for beginners.

The Solution

• Use more beginner friendly language language informing participants how to publish their own papers.
• Highlight the possible recognition they can get if their findings and data are used in another publication.
• Include highlights of participants who've been published in the past as well as their work, possibly adding testimonials of their experiences.
• Highlight how this all connects to NASA since this is a big motivator for getting involved with Exoplanet Watch.
• Add more visuals (e.g. planet simulations, examples of light curves, etc.)

Results‍👔🔍

The Problem

• Again, many participants thought this page was for experienced users or experts.
• An overwhelming consensus of users thought the Results page was too difficult to understand due to too much information and data.
• When asked, "At any point did you get lost exploring the website?" One participant stated, "In some pages, the information was too advanced, like the Results tab with the table."

The Solution

• Remove the table and, instead, create a hyperlink or drop-down button that leads to the table so users can see the data if they want to and aren't immediately overwhelmed.
• Add examples or a short video of how to interpret the columns and what the columns mean.
• Break up the text blocks with interactive elements in between. Some users had previously stated that these elements were "the best part of their experience on the website."

After the final presentation, we reflected on obstacles, surprises, and possible improvements