Reorganizing the information architecture of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day website

UX - Website redesign

I was first introduced to NASA's astronomy picture of the day (APoD) during my astronomy class at Ohio State. APoD is a platform that aims to connect scientists, academics, educational institutions and astronomy geeks through mutual sharing of new findings, exciting facts and beautiful photography all in one location. 

The existing content of this site is excellent, but the user interface and information hierarchy results in a difficult experience, especially when trying to navigate the different functions of the site.

2 week exercise

Existing APoD

It is easy to see that the primary focus of this site is the large presentation of the "photo of the day," but I noticed that there was no branding whatsoever: the navigation bar was at the bottom of the page (I did not know there was a navigation bar at all until a few days after using the site) and written content was difficult to interpret because of the font size and line lengths.

Once I started studying the navigation bar, I realized that many functions that were listed separately were closely related and some others lead to separate sites with functions that could also be incorporated into APoD's main website.

I grouped the site's content into related categories. As a result, the user can navigate to the desired action or information more directly. The final page categories were Content (the landing page to apod.nasa.gov), education, submissions, and about.

My redesign of APoD - With two viewing settings

The content of the site was not just hard to read because of where it was originally placed, at the bottom of the picture, but depending on the site’s context of use the background color also made it difficult to read.

A “dark view” is much more appropriate for classroom settings, where there is a projector being used to take a better look at a larger image. A “light view” will be better to use in bright settings.