Creating a Center of Excellence for Design Nerds who are also Space Nerds
By: Astronaut Centered Design
Tags: NASA, Space, Design, Space Exploration, UX Design

Artwork by Elliot Belchatovski

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing. It has been an exciting year for human space exploration, with major milestones reached on the development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion Crew Capsule, as well as a commitment by the federal government to return to the moon in five years (including the first women on the moon). With all this momentum, it’s time we designers take on a more active role in the development of the tools, technology, and architecture that astronauts will interface with on their way to the moon, and on the lunar surface.

For the past two years, I have been conducting in-depth design research into human performance and activities in deep space environments. This research has been distilled and applied to an Interaction Design Guideline, specifically for spacesuit interfaces. The guideline was recently circulated in an internal NASA memo as best practices for AR/VR design in space and lunar environments! Over the next three months, I will be publishing the research and guidelines as a multi-part anthology. The goal is to make this a proto-design center of excellence for the comprehensive and amazing future of astronaut-centered design.

A new chapter of the anthology will be published weekly, with a predicted format as follows:

Artemis Primer: Before we can even dive in to the design specifics, we need to know the specifics around the proposed moon missions. Who is going? When? What are the goals of the missions? What technology and tools will they be using? Where will they live? etc…. Design Operations: For my systems and ops nerds in the audience, we will cover how you even begin to design for deep space. This will include an overview of product development processes within NASA and methodologies for designing with analog environments & users. The Astronaut Persona: A human body on the moon is very different from one on the earth or in space. The effects of micro-gravity, lighting, stress, and inter-crew behavior changes the way astronauts will operate within and experience their environment. We will break down the major factors, as well as the goals and common behaviors of astronauts. Input Modalities and Interfaces: Starting with the building blocks of any design guideline, this will cover the affordances (or lack thereof) of various input modalities and interfaces as well as rules of thumb to design for them. Design Exercises for Lunar Activities: The planned astronaut experience on the moon can be broken down in to 7 major categories. We will showcase proposed design work for several of these categories, and discuss how others could be approached. Design at Scale: This will cover how designers might collaborate together and create an unified design system across the platforms and scales of design, from computer interfaces, to rovers, to the environments that astronauts occupy.

This is both an exciting and vulnerable endeavor, to put the fruits of my design labor out into the world. I believe design is a conversation, and this work can only improve with the discourse of those participating in this process. I encourage commentary, critique, and compliments as this anthology is released. If you want to get involved in designing for astronauts, send me a message at erin@astronautcentereddesign.com.