Stella - Explore the Constellation at Your Fingertip


Category: Student Project, Installation Art, Microsoft Kinect

Timeframe: 10/2015 - 12/2015

Team MR.BOX: Billin Yu, Janine Li, Karen Bao, Melody Wang, and Ronald Ho

My Role: Project Manager and UX Designer



Stella Award



Problem

A lot of schools in BC have introduced digital tools like iPad into their day-to-day teaching system, however, most of the contents are static information that has no interactivity. Students found them boring to play, especially compared to all kinds of video games that they can play during their spare time. There is a gap between demanding need for highly engaging and interactive learning experience and poorly designed static contents that schools provide in reality.



Solution

Our solution is Stella. Stella is an interactive installation that provides immersive, interactive and social experience at the convenience of your fingertips to explore the constellation. It comprises of three projection systems onto three floor-to-ceiling walls to provide the user with a image that covers their entire field of vision.





Our Approach - Test the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to generate feedbacks

We only had 9 weeks for this project including the research, design and development. At every stage of the project, we kept asking ourselves - “How could we use the prototypes we have so far to understand users’ thoughts and behaviours?” Our approach was to use MVP of different stage to test with users.

  • Test 1: Connect the dots with your hand
    Our Ask: is connectting two dots with your hand exciting?
  • Test 2: Keynote slides to walk through the overall flow
    Our Ask: does the tutorial and language make sense to you?
  • Test 3: Beta Testing with Microsoft Kinect
    Our Ask: how do you feel about the experience?

Stella Storyboard



The Results

Stella have gained a lot of people’s love. It has been selected as SIGGRAPH 2017 Faculty Submitted Work Exhibit. And inspired by this project, Vancouver Maritime Museum has partnered with the Centre for Digital Media for research and development for another installation project.