Consideration of Design Viability

Introduction:

The Nanolabs GUI design was carefully reviewed based on several relevant extra-functional considerations. A judgment about design viability based on those considerations is clearly realistic and well supported with the interface designs. There are still many factors to be implemented into the final GUI design, however, our team opted for the interface that uses both numerical and buttons to display the Nanolab data.

Viability/Evidence:

By providing a cross-platform interface, people can use the GUI with access to any device. By showcasing the functions of the GUI, people will grasp the importance of data collection. Because our item is not physical, we will have to explain the functions and vitality of autonomous data from ISS experiments. By providing results from past and even present experiments, people will be able to grasp why autonomous data collection is so important.

Since we are not physically producing hardware, there is little to no worry about the negative effects of our GUI.

We are certain that if successfully deployed, our GUI would solve the issue of accessing data from the Nanolabs from members from all levels of education (5th grade to a college professor)

If failed, our GUI does not pose a threat to anyone on the ISS or on earth. The worst that can happen is a failure with the code or hardware.

Viability: The examples above provide visuals for how simple the interface will be, having a minimal chance of error when operated by the user. The interface is purposefully simple and generic so it can accommodate future experiments that utilize the Nanolabs.

Evidence: Rebbecca Vogels of Usersnap says the greatest challenge of designing a successful interface is"...thinking about how users are navigating the UI and which actions they expect to happen". In order to tackle these issues, our team has concluded that multiple interfaces will need to be designed for differently skilled users (i.e. functions, capabilities, words, graphs, pictures). Our market research has determined that the average user (with minimal GUI knowledge) would prefer the use of pictures and designs to accommodate for their lack of knowledge.

Market Analysis:

Our competitors are Near Space Corporation, NovaWurks, Leaf Space, and ISISPACE, all companies that compete directly with Nanoracks. Nanoracks is the cooperation that our team is collaborating with to design the GUI and to which our team will provide our code. Nanoracks is the service that will receive data from the ISS modules (Nanolabs).

Conclusion:

Our team is pushing for a working prototype so professionals and researchers can experience and back the idea of our team's GUI. In order to make the GUI more appealing to the general population, different/multiple interfaces will be designed for each age/experience group.