Xperience: Self Landing
How do info designers make sense of complexity? We were challenged to build an interactive exhibit explaining the technicalities of self landing rockets to a lay audience. After a few months of research, prototyping, and testing, we crafted a roleplay Xperience.
Role: Project planning, Design & Production
Tech for the non-techy
To reach our target audience—people in creative fields who were unfamiliar with self landing technology—we paired information with hands-on activities, reinforcing new concepts through a physical Xperience.
We were motivated by interview insights such as:
- How does self landing compare to traditional landing?
- What’s the history of self landing tech?
- What makes the rocket strong enough to withstand multiple landings?
- How does the rocket stay balanced?
We decided to group info into three stations: 1) Assembly, where viewers could see self landing technology in context by assembling the self landing Starship, 2) Launch, where viewers could see how self landing looks live, and 3) Challenges, where interactive activities communicated the difficulties of self landing.
Low-fi testing. Watching people go through the prototypes clued us in on areas of confusion.
Station 1: Assembly posters explaining the context of self landing rockets and the key parts of self landing rocket Starship. Questions by those new to the concept like “why is it difficult to self land?” and “why has it taken so long?” were given special attention.
Station 2: Launch presented the stages of rocket launch and self landing. Stages were timed with in-flight moments, to make the information easier to connect. Timeline layout and research by my colleague Chaitanya Sai Botta.
Station 3: Challenges highlighted difficulties of self landing rockets through interactive activities, developed by my colleague Joy Zhang.
Thank you to our instructor Sheila Pontis for guidance and direction. It was great seeing our growth after six months of info design learning.
