SPACED

SPACED is a travel company that allows you to travel to space and back safely.

SPACED was a competition that YouTuber and Designer Dan Petty initiated and sponsored by Epicurrence — Winter Workweek. He encouraged his followers to participate by asking for an intergalactic space travel agency website, app, or log. This company, SPACED, would be focused around providing a unique experience, and safe intergalactic space travel.

Design Brief

Who is SPACED: SPACED is a space travel company providing the ultimate experience for outer space travel with feature destinations like the Moon, Mars, Earth, and Europa. One of our top features is our cheeky customer service and speed — we can get you anywhere safely in our universe within 1 day.

What we need:

Logo/Branding: We need a logo that sums up who we are. We go to infinity and well beyond.

Homepage: We need a homepage that informs our potential customers about our safe travel experience to space. We’re really excited about our new feature destination, the Moon. The website will need to allow for our customers to book travel to our available destinations.

App: We need an app that will allow people to book travel and experiences.

Words/Phrases that describe us:

awesome, tech, ultimate, experience, high-end, future, quick, elon, musk. We’re more Virgin American than United but cheekiness of Southwest. Tesla/Audi for space travel. Our space suits are made by Nike. Our customers can’t afford a Rolex, most rep Apple Watches if anything at all. Our customers have at least one pair of white shoes. If we were a computer we’d be an iMac Pro. If we were a phone we’d be the Pixel 2 XL in white. Stormtroopers + The Darkside. More Coke than Pepsi. If we were a billboard, our product would feature a Mini Cooper.

Our Target Audience: Humans age 25–45

Things to know:

It’s always SPACED, not Spaced, or spaced. Our tagline is: To space and back, safely. We’re fans of lots of black and white with 1–2 accent colors. We like sans serif fonts but not opposed to other options. No VISA necessary for travel. We have competitive pricing. We believe the moon landing was 90% real. The Earth is round. We’re not alone. Saturn has more rings that LeBron James.

What we don’t know:

We haven’t yet picked a headquarters for our launch pad so open to suggestions however JFK in New York has a strong bid in.

I began working on this project in January 2018 and continued modifying it through early May 2018. Being brand new to the user experience field, I made many mistakes and learned innumerable lessons. For starters, the importance of detailed personas and solid research.

Personas

As mentioned in the design brief, SPACED caters towards humans ages 25–40. These people would be middle or working class people who travel once or twice a year. SPACED does not discriminate between genders and welcomes all to travel with them. These people would generally be the picture taking, Instagram Story wielding, #adventureloving individuals.

Sam: Sam the typical Pacific Northwesterner. He is typically dressed in a t-shirt and flannel, black jeans and adventure-ready shoes. He’s looking for his next adventure to post his #nomaticlife hashtag with. After putting in his hours at his startup job, he searches the web for the best travel deals and coolest adventures. He stumbles across SPACED, and is instantly intrigued by the unique adventure packages and locations they supply, and is pleasantly surprised to find them so affordable! He books a trip for him and his buddies to hike the mountains on Mars next spring.

Sarah: Sarah is a born and raised city girl. She loves to post photos of her and her wife, Ali, at the local coffee shop. She’s always looking for the best deals out there and telling all her blog readers about how to make the most of their small living space and eating healthy. She finds a deal to travel with SPACED and quickly accepts, having heard about the beautifully designed cities on Neptune. She books a trip for her and Ali to spend the New Years in the beautiful blue and gold cities of Neptune.

Research:

A collection of screen shots taken for my research

My research influenced things like my menu layout, button ideas, color pallet, and lead me to think that negative space and icons were important. Not only in this design, but in design in general. These findings were further enforced in my later research; but first, logo design.

Logo:

Final Logo design for SPACED

Through many various sketches and form, I finally landed on using this logo. I wanted to keep the logo simple, and have it be a icon for the company. My logo could be easily transformed into a sticker, patch, used as a watermark, or animated depending on the need. I wanted to do something with light trails to correspond with the established idea of traveling at light or warp speed given to us through Star Wars and Star Trek.

After all the research, and finally coming up with a logo design, I began making wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes. These first few sketches and prototypes are from the first iteration of my process. My professor brought up important points about flow and accessibility for the visually impaired so I changed my design drastically after this first critique.

Sketches and Wireframes

First Low-Fidelity

Various Iterations throughout my time working on this project:

My second quarter in the UX program, we decided to continue editing our SPACED projects. After running a quick heuristic evaluation and critiques from my classmates I decided to focus in on redesigning my app.

Tests:

We followed up this redesign with various forms of testing. Beginning with card sorting, I asked my friends and family to fill out a quick online survey and organize my expected content into categories using OptimalWorkshop.com. I then moved to Qualitative tests using an audio recorder app on my phone and then Silverback to record my screen and audio for the tests.

Card Sorting:

Beginning with card sorting, I asked my friends and family to fill out a quick online survey and organize my expected content into categories

Audio Recordings:

I had two different generations represented in my test, X and Z(though, in the recording mistakenly identified as generation X). The two generation X’s would read everything on the page when they first opened it, whereas Z scrolled and scanned the page quickly until he hit the pictures, then continued until the bottom of the page. I think if I were to do this test again I would think of one or two more scenarios as a ‘warm up’ to get the users the practice needed for a good test.

Because of this test I noticed I was missing a few key things. The first being the company’s name, as well as a more noticeable hierarchy. It was not obvious that ‘booking a trip’ was all one element, and there were no directions to indicate what the user should do.

The audio recordings corrupted and are such unable to be shared.

Qualitative Tests:

Methodology:

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User 1: This user was recruited from school. He works at the math department at EWU and is online around 40 hours a week to view youtube videos, gmail, Facebook, Instagram, snapchat, reddit. The test took about 10 minutes to complete, and was asked to look through the site to become familiar with it. After a few warmup questions I asked the participant to think about how they would respond to a series of scenarios that are listed below. User found it easy to walk through the site. He found all but one of the pages, the missing page being an error on my part. While looking at the main page I received the expected results- the CTA’s making him want to go on an adventure to space. The biggest surprise was that instead of navigating into “profile” as expected during the last question, the user went to ‘book now’.

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User 2: This user was recruited from home. She works at an elementary school as a kindergarten teacher and is online around 5 hours a week to view home improvement or teacher tips, ideas, and supplies. The test took about 18 minutes to complete. After a few warmup questions I asked the participant to think about how they would respond to a series of scenarios that are listed below. User unexpectedly didn’t use the menu, but the footer to navigate the site. While looking at the main page I received the expected results- the CTA’s making her want to go on an adventure to space. The biggest surprise was the unfamiliarity with the hamburger menu bar, even though on the apps she uses on her phone it is included.

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User 3: This user was recruited from home. He is a High School student who estimates that he spends hours 12 hours a day on the internet between his tech school, extra curricular activities. The test took about 15 minutes to complete. After a few warmup questions I asked the participant to think about how they would respond to a series of scenarios that are listed below. User had a good understanding of the terminology and icons used. While looking at the main page I received the expected results- the CTA’s making him want to go on an adventure to space. There weren’t any big surprises with his responses

Tasks and Results:

1. A friend of yours told you about this new travel agency called “SPACED” but you’re questioning its safety. Where would you go to find out information about SPACED’s safety features?

• User one: Located the ‘safety features’ page easily and quickly. no surprises
• User two: Located the ‘safety features’ page easily and quickly. Surprisingly used the footer instead of the menu
• User three: Located the ‘safety features’ page easily and quickly.

2. You and a friend have decided to take a long weekend vacation to Neptune for some surfing. Where would you purchase that kind of adventure?

• User one: Located ‘book now’ easily and quickly. Once prompted to try to find another place to find activities I realized that I did not include the ‘Destinations and Activities’ page into my menu bar.
• User two: Located ‘book now’ easily and quickly. Once prompted she found other ways to book the trip.
• User three: Located ‘book now’ easily and quickly. Once prompted he found other ways to book the trip.

3. You booked a trip a week ago, but you can’t remember what time you return. Where would you go to find that information? Where would you go to find your itinerary for your trip?

• User one: Unexpectedly went to ‘book now’ instead of the profile page to look for his itinerary. I may include a link back to the profile page for the itinerary.
• User Two: Found the itinerary on the profile page- which i might have eluded to by not allowing her to view the page (oops)
• User Three: Found the itinerary on the profile page.

What went as expected?

User one: task one and two basically went as expected. Had the link been where the user expected it to be, he would have found the destinations and activities page. He did look for it.

User two: The test went as expected. The user admits to being a technology immigrant rather than native (meaning she’s a bit clueless when it comes to certain standards and terminology). And even after the test we continued talking about menus, buttons, and the like.

User three: The test went as expected. The user admits to being a technology immigrant rather than native (meaning she’s a bit clueless when it comes to certain standards and terminology). And even after the test we continued talking about menus, buttons, and the like.

What happened that you had not expected? Where did participants struggle?

The entirety of task three was unexpected for user one, as explained previously.

I expected the user to understand the menu bar. I think most people who would download the app would understand its purpose though.

Even after completing all the tests and redesigns, I still have elements I would want to add in for my next go around for this app. There are a couple other smaller things I would fix as well like possibly adding in advertisements for various trips and things, as well as tweak a few design elements. As my professors are constantly reminding me, design is never finished, and there is no perfect design, only good, better, and best designs. Embracing this mentality allows for a more open mind when it comes to problem solving, and allows for the longevity of a project to be less wearing and dull.

Next Steps:

• Adding in elements of the suit. Like what the communication units might look like or the sleek style of a new and upcoming suit.
• Tweak menu bar a bit more so there isn’t as much space between the bars- making it look more traditional.
• Make the text larger in the CTAs and footer.
• Add in the Destinations and Activities into the menu
• Make the homepage look scrollable

Most Recent InVision Link