EventConnect™ test page

Neighborhood Comet Case Study

Same screenshot as on the homepage. Screenshot of 3 mobile phones tilted sideways. The phone on the left has the "lesson" page where users can learn about astronomy. This page shows a nebula. The phone in the center is the stargazing section, and the star named "Betelgeuse" is selected, with text explaining to the user what it is. The phone on the right is the score page, showing a graph with points rising over time.

Project Overview

Usability tests with 3 potential users revealed a concern about competing with more experienced users. I creating a league system to solve this.

In this gamified stargazing app, users can score points by finding celestial objects in the sky.

Role: UX Researcher and Designer
Duration: 4 weeks*

Phone with the stargazing section. A photo of stars, and a star is selected. A panel below shows "Betelgeuse" with text explaining to the user what it is. This panel is partly underneath another panel further below, with buttons, such as "Change location" and "Search time/date." Both panels are scrollable.

I interviewed 3 potential users to know if this would be an app they would want. They expressed concern about competing with more experienced users. One of the participants came up with the solution of using leagues to keep competition fair.

Since the participants wanted different things, I decided to give users the option to either compete with yourself, compete with others, or both.

Phone with the score section. The background is black. A graph with a white line and an orange dashed line. The white line is "Your score" and the orange line is "Same league." Below are 3 dropdown menus: Duration (in this case "3 months"), Type of game (in this case "Stargazing"), and Other players (in this case "Same league"). Below are 2 buttons: a black "Back" button and a yellow "Reset view" button.

Colour accessibility

These combinations are accessible for colour blindness and low vision (WCAG 2.2).

Purple
#480E9E

Yellow
#EBDA1E

Purple
#480E9E

Grey
#D6D6D6

Black
#141414

Yellow
#EBDA1E

Black
#141414

Grey
#D6D6D6

Black
#141414

Orange
#F48430

Black
#141414

Red
#FF4A48

Black
#141414

Green
#17E573

Black
#141414

Blue
#2FEEFA

Results

User impact: We predict that users will say that they find the app interesting and engaging, and are not overwhelmed by the competition. We predict that they will want to keep learning astronomy.
Business impact: We predict that the app will keep many of its monthly active users.

KewinLan@Outlook.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn®

References and Other Information

*I spent more than 4 weeks, but if I condense it to a full-time schedule it would have approximately been 4 weeks.

Special thanks to the anonymous 3 people who I interviewed for this.

This is a fictional app.

The font used is Verdana.

Accessible fonts: https://accessibility.uncg.edu/getting-started-with-accessibility/accessible-design/

Gohd, C. (2023, May 3). What is Betelgeuse? Inside the Strange, Volatile Star. NASA. https://universe.nasa.gov/news/237/what-is-betelgeuse-inside-the-strange-volatile-star/

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/

Photo of a nebula: images-assets.nasa.gov/image/PIA13014/PIA13014~orig.jpg or https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA13014
By NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Photo of comet in the “Comets and Near Earth Objects”: images-assets.nasa.gov/image/GSFC_20171208_Archive_e000124/GSFC_20171208_Archive_e000124~orig.jpg or https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20171208_Archive_e000124
By NASA Goddard

Photo of Saturn in the lesson list: images-assets.nasa.gov/image/9019795/9019795~orig.jpg or https://images.nasa.gov/details/9019795
By NASA and Marshall Space Flight Center

Photo of stars in the stargazing sections: images-assets.nasa.gov/image/PIA17005/PIA17005~orig.jpg or https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA17005
By NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/IRAM

Wifi and Battery icons provided by Apache License Version 2.0. I altered their colour and size.
“Wifi” icon: https://fonts.google.com/icons?selected=Material%20Symbols%20Outlined%3Awifi%3AFILL%400%3Bwght%40400%3BGRAD%400%3Bopsz%4024
“Battery Full” Icon: https://fonts.google.com/icons?selected=Material%20Symbols%20Outlined%3Abattery_full%3AFILL%400%3Bwght%40400%3BGRAD%400%3Bopsz%4024

WCAG 2.2: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

The celestial body that is circled in some of the photos may or may not actually be Betelgeuse.
NASA, other organisations, and people credited above are not affiliated with this project.