The SpaceLab

The SpaceLab Non-Profit is a place where young people and space enthusiasts can discover and learn about the greater galactic neighborhood.

Project Overview

My Role:

Timeline:

6 Weeks (Longer term hackathon)

Tools:

Figma, Google Docs/Sheets

Peers:

Other UI Designers, Front-End Engineers

Task:

UX & UI Designer

Myself and other designers had to do a complete website redesign for both mobile and desktop

Problem

Yes, the SpaceLab is a place where space enthusiasts can explore planets and stars, however, The SpaceLab is trying to accomplish a bigger goal: diversifying tech by providing a place where early tech professionals from underrepresented communities can participate in tech projects. The SpaceLab wants to give these new professionals the experience they need to jumpstart their tech career. My challenge? I need to incorporate that into a space-related website? Sure.

Solution

Give The SpaceLab website a space “feel” but, more importantly, stress the importance of diversity and getting the opportunity for first time tech professionals to use their new skills.

Research

With minimal knowledge of the space industry and joining the project in its late stages, I quickly familiarized myself with how space-related websites organize their content. Due to tight deadlines, I was unable to conduct as much user research as I typically would. As a result, many design decisions were informed by assumptions.

Who is my targeted audience?

First and foremost, the client wanted SpaceLab’s dedication to diversifying tech to be the biggest thing our team highlighted in the website redesign.

Young, diverse tech professionals

Potential Investors

Space enthusiasts

What can we learn from the other space organizations?

At a first glance of the original website, it was hard for users to know what SpaceLab was with the content displayed above the fold on the home page. While the word "Space" was included in the logo, there was no clear indication that the organization was involved in space-related projects. In contrast, organizations like NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman immediately convey their connection to the space industry through the imagery used on their websites. As you can see in the images below, all websites included space content. Most importantly, all organizations were simple, straight to the point. Looking at the images below, the other organizations did not need extravagant designs or a ton of color to make the design sleek.

Final Solution

After doing the research and learning from other space organizations, we were ready to execute the new high-fidelity design. Launching Mission Control for Great Design.

Starting with the logo: Simple is best

Original Logo

The visual design of the logo comes across as playful, but it might not fully align with the tone we’re aiming for.

New Logo

Website logo

Social Media logo

Updated the logo to a more polished and sleek design to better resonate with our target audience.

Also included a social media icon, which was a shortened version of the new logo.

Emphasizing “Donations”

Original Menu

Although the original menu did have “Donate”, it wasn’t a distinctive CTA.

Added additional “Donate” CTA’s to encourage users (ideally investors) to donate to the organization. Furthermore, having a CTA distinct from the other menu items will make it easier for potential investors to donate.

New Menu

It needs more Space

Original Home Page

Upon first glance at the website, users would have been confused about what the organization does. Is it space related or does it have something to do with both?

New Home Page

Although subtle, I put a space reference as a background so users know that the organization is space related.

Key Takeaways

  • Took advantage of a great opportunity to expand my mobile design skills! I don’t get the opportunity to work on mobile as often, so this was definitely an exciting challenge for me. On top of that, I came in late stages of the design phase, so I had to ramp up very quickly on space knowledge.

  • I was happy to apply knowledge in a space where I was unfamiliar: Diversity in Tech. As a biracial woman and a former tech recruiter with success in diversity recruiting, it felt awesome to understand a target audience that I resonated with.

  • I also got the opportunity to build a mobile component library from scratch. Although it is not extensive due to the company size, I was still very proud of the fact that I stepped out of my comfort zone.

To be Continued

If given the opportunity to continue the project, I would have liked to have collected data on the following:

  • Assessing additional talent: Did the design for the website convince other young, diverse talent to join the organization?

  • Donations: Did having more distinct and frequent “Donate” CTA’s throughout the website help increase the funnel for potential investors or general donors?

  • Subscribers: How many more subscribers did we get from the newly designed website?