The final version of ISS Watch educates the public about what's going on onboard the International Space Station with four main sections.

Schedule

The schedule is the central view in ISS Watch, presenting a vertically scrollable timeline of scheduled activities performed by the crew on the ISS. Activities are separated into color-coded categories, and the user can tap on them to view more information.

This schedule provides a central and key role to ISS Watch: it showcases real-time information that provides some incentive for returning to the application and educates the user about exactly what is going on onboard the ISS.

Expedition

Expeditions are the central organizing unit of missions on the International Space Station: each expedition lasts a few months and contains its own crew and its own set of research experiments to carry out.

The expedition section provides not only an educational introduction to the concept of an expedition and the ISS in general, but also allows the user to delve into the experiments and crew of the current expedition. In doing so, it serves as a gateway to both deep scientific content and a human aspect of the station.

Media

The media gallery contains recently posted images and videos, giving the user a glimpse of station life. It is visual, immersive, and puts a face to the content in the rest of the application.

During our spring user research, we found that visuals and space imagery play a crucial role in inspiring interest in students. In the words of a student we tested the application with, “you know a kid can look at the pictures and see what they do and dream that they're there.”

Real-Time Panel

This panel can be accessed throughout the application from the toolbar. As a supplement to the content of the three main sections, the purpose of the panel is to make the user feel like the application is always connected to the space station. The panel boasts three major sections: a tracker showing the ISS's current location, a real-time camera view of Earth from the station, and a constantly updating feed of breaking news from NASA, live tweets, and upcoming events.

The camera view brings an emotional touch to ISS Watch, while the tracker indicates the current position of the station. We’ve obtained extremely positive feedback about these three elements of the panel; one student even talked about how this application would help her and other kids realize when they can go look out at the sky and find something cool.