Meet the Team

Development Process

Over the course of this two-quarter capstone project, our team developed a Unity 3D game designed to inform and educate the general public about the Psyche-16 asteroid and it’s associated NASA mission. Starting from scratch with only broad guidelines from our sponsor, we worked together to define and prioritize features, allowing everyone the chance to participate, contribute, and learn something new. During each sprint, we evaluated requirements and documentation carefully, weighing the pros and cons of every possible design and implementation choice available to us. Before committing to a path forward, we considered how each decision might impact future development and advance us towards our end goal.

Throughout the project, we maintained consistent communication with our sponsor and each other via bi-weekly meetings and ongoing conversations through Slack. Every planned feature was discussed with our sponsor prior to deployment for approval and to ensure alignment. When challenges did arise, we confronted them collaboratively, making a particular point to make sure everyone was involved. This ultimately open process of communication, deliberate planning, and iterative development helped us navigate the complexities of the project and, from our perspective, produce a more meaningful educational game.

Tools

Documentation

Evaluation

We conducted biweekly meetings with our project partner Cassie Bowman on Zoom in order to gain feedback on our design and implementation process. We would provide artifacts related to our design and/or our code to ensure to what we were building aligned strictly with NASA's Year on Psyche project guidelines. This iterative process enabled us to understand the game's scope at a high-level and enabled us to refine both the functionality and user experience.

Furthermore, we also conducted usability testing with students and TAs in order to gain additional feedback regarding our game. We specifically had our users play the game from start to finish and had them extensively test each feature and functionality. Feedback was gathered on core mechanics such as mining, movement, and camera controls, as well as UI elements including the main menu, colors, and volume controls. 

Some of the biggest concerns we addressed include:

• Font — making it compatible for screen readers because it may be difficult to read for certain users

• Language — making sure all age groups can understand the tasks at hand and progress through the game

• Behavior Response — watching to see what may cause discomfort to a player

• Auditory — being able to play the game with or without sound and how to adjust the music

• Compliance — ensuring the UI is clean and accessible by referencing Unity Accessibility and WCAG 2.1

• Navigation — navigation tools follow common standards and can be figured out easily by users

Here are some notable examples of revisions we made to our game based on user feedback:

Final Product

DISCLAIMER

This work was created in partial fulfillment of the University of California, Irvine Capstone Course "INF4MATX 191A/B". The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (NASA Psyche Mission). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.