An environment for storytelling
In May 2008 Microsoft Research launched the first beta of the WorldWide Telescope (WWT). The WorldWide Telescope is virtual telescope software for browsing imagery of the universe from a variety of sources. This learning resource provides a smooth and seamless user experience that allows users to explore the sky, while understanding the context and scale of what they are looking at. The exploration experience is enhanced by a highly visual interface for finding the good stuff in the sky and following guided tours made by other users.
The Challenge
Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay approached Artefact in early 2007 to collaborate on a user experience design for their WWT project. At this first meeting, we got a glimpse at the initial state of the application that allowed zooming and panning of the universe imagery. In this rudimentary state, the application was already highly compelling and its potential was easy to imagine.
However, there were still many unsolved design problems. The Microsoft team's vision was to create a compelling learning resource by combining a great exploration experience with guided tours. Integrating linear narrative into a highly interactive environment has many challenges and requires thoughtful execution.
In addition, the type of users can vary widely. For example science teachers may have specific themes, objects or topics that they wish to explore; amateur astronomers may want a better view of something they have seen; non-astronomers may have unclear objectives except to be "engaged" by the subject matter and experience. Our goal was to create an experience that could engage everyone equally and provide the same degree of usefulness across the board.
Finally, space is large! How do you create an experience that allows you to really understand scale and context? How do you find the proverbial needle in a haystack? And how do you do all this without overwhelming the stunning beauty of the photographic content itself?
Process
The design of the WWT was divided into two short phases with a couple of months in-between. The first six-week phase consisted of ideation where Artefact explored many different directions to address the aforementioned challenges. After converging on one design direction, Artefact described the recommendation in a detailed specification document.
The second phase, which began after much of the design recommendation had been implemented, consisted of tying up loose ends in the user experience, as well as creating a brand for the project. Eventually, this culminated in a branded experience across the application and the website.
Result
The design collaboration resulted in a tour design where the universe imagery acts as the canvas for the narrative. Users are in control of the tour experience: they can sit back and enjoy the guided experience, or at any point during the tour, they can start exploring the universe imagery on their own. When designing a tour, an editor can add recorded audio or overlays, such as text, shapes or images, on top of the universe imagery.
In order to encourage exploration, a design direction was chosen where highly visual thumbnails entice users to look for interesting aspects of the universe. Clicking a thumbnail navigates to that element in the sky. Contextual UI shows the user what is currently in view and always provides a sense of context, scale, and direction.
Artefact's work resulted in a great user experience design complementing an innovative product idea from Microsoft Research. Our initial engagement was short and the small Microsoft team did a great job implementing the user interface and working through many of the UX details for the current beta release. Microsoft applied for patents for aspects of the user interface design work.
TIME's 50 Best Websites 2009
"Like Google Earth for the heavens, WWT aggregates terabytes of astronomical data from the world's biggest telescopes to create a single virtual scope that anyone can look through. WWT is not a model of the known universe, but rather a centralized repository for just about everything known about the universe. The idea is to democratize the science of astronomy with a single tool that can be used by students and scientists. Who knows, when everyone has access to the same data, maybe the next big discovery in astronomy will be made by an amateur? There are hundreds of terabytes of digitized sky — enough data for everyone."
TIME's 50 Best Websites 2009: WorldWide Telescope
365: AIGA Annual Design Competition 29
"The jury’s selections will be mounted as a public exhibition scheduled to open at the AIGA National Design Center in New York on December 10. The exhibit will travel across the country to AIGA chapters and student groups during 2009. In addition, selections become part of the AIGA Design Archives, a searchable visual database of exemplary design, are documented in 365: AIGA Year In Design 29, an annual print publication and the physical artifacts join the AIGA Design Archives at the Denver Art Museum."
365: AIGA Annual Design Competition 29
TED Talks Preview of WorldWide Telescope
TED Talks Preview of WorldWide Telescope
Quotes from the press and users indicate that the experience is appreciated by the wide variety of users that was originally anticipated.
Roger Mandle, President Rhode Island School of Design says:
"The presentation of the WWT, through its interactivity is one of the most sophisticated yet one of the most simple to use of any I have seen. I have studied a lot of these kinds of learning systems online and this one happens to have the most clear, the most obvious pathways."
Robert Hurt, Astronomer, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, California Institute of Technology says:
"The WorldWide Telescope is a great example of a piece of educational software that's been designed intelligently from the ground up. And it is the most impressive one I've seen to date to handle the visualization of the sky in a very interactive, smooth, clean interface."
Steve Lohr, New York Times says:
"There are many online astronomy sites, but astronomers say the Microsoft entry sets a new standard in three-dimensional representation of vast amounts data plucked from space telescopes, the ease of navigation, the visual experience and features like guided tours narrated by experts."
Michael Tan, CNET says:
"Microsoft has blended an optimal user interface for the WWT, including guided tours, intelligent "sensing what you're doing" technology. Say, if you zoom in on something, the program detects your interest and names the top most interesting locations in the window below with a thumbnail so you can just click on those for an explanation and identification."
Robert Scoble, Scobleizer says:
"And, yes, that’s worth crying some inspirational tears. Thank you to Microsoft Research for inspiring me in a way that Microsoft hasn’t inspired me in years."