NASA JPL Eyes Research
Problem, Process, Conclusion
- Hiring a research consultant to aid in recruiting, moderating, and synthesizing the data
- Setting up ad hoc usability research labs, complete with remote monitoring capabilities
- Recruiting participants, including clients, enthusiasts, students, and teachers
- Moderating qualitative studies
- Synthesizing data to use in discussions with stakeholders
Heuristic Analysis
There are physical differences between how a person uses kiosks and web experiences that are simple to consider. Working through the touch vs. click standard led us through more interesting discussions about which use cases were worth leaving behind. Optimizing the experiences for touch was one of the bigger considerations that didn’t impose too much one way or the other.
Qualitative Studies
I worked with our research consultant to facilitate moderated studies of the Eyes products. Together we interviewed more than a dozen participants over two days and discovered many differences in how people use them.
They’re fun. All participants enjoyed how discoverable the science was while using these interfaces. This was interesting as it went against my best recommendations as a UX professional, but keeping the fun is usually a good thing. This led to a filter-based navigation to allow the experiences to scale and the discoverability of the science to remain intact.