During the spring semester, our group performed two main kinds of data gathering in order to inform the iterative design we would perform in the summer semester.

The first type,   general research  , involved applying HCI techniques to a plethora of MI planning environments and applications in order to determine the overarching strengths, weaknesses, and breakdowns in the general field of MI planning. Other techniques such as literature review and expert interviews were also employed in order to gain more domain knowledge of MI planning and to help us generate design solutions.

The second type of data gathering,  mission analysis  , involved performing Contextual Inquiries of the Mars Exploration Rovers' Mission Control, located at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California in order to determine the strengths, weaknesses, and breakdwons in the specific environment we would be designing for. Most, if not all, of the general MI breakdowns we determined from our more general research were also observed at MER Mission Control.