astronova
Connecting Curious Minds Across the Stars
This project was created during my 3rd year of the B.Des in Visual Communication at HIT, together with classmate Omer Ninio.
Introduction
Stars have fascinated humanity for centuries. Yet, when it comes to modern tools, astronomy often falls into two extremes: scientific databases that are too complex for non-experts, or mobile apps that simplify the sky into entertainment.
We analyzed the current landscape and identified key limitations:
Historical Star Catalogs
Rich in data, but lacking visuals and intuitive navigation.
Scientific Databases
Highly credible, yet inaccessible for non-experts.
Apps & Planetariums
Visually engaging, but focused on entertainment.
Research
From knowledge gaps to global collaboration, what astronomy enthusiasts really need 📝
To deepen our understanding, we interviewed Nitzan Moran.
Context
Interviewee: Nitzan Moran space lecturer, community leader, and mentor in the Ramon Foundation’s SpaceLab program.
Why him: He combines professional knowledge in astronomy with extensive experience in science communication and teaching.
Goal of the interview: To understand the challenges and needs of both astronomy enthusiasts and educators when using astronomical catalogs and observation apps.
Method
• Semi-structured, in-depth interview with open-ended questions.
• Duration: 45 minutes.
• Conducted online.
• Focused on both current tools and unmet needs for future solutions.
Key Insights
Core need: Astronomy enthusiasts mainly want to know when and where a specific star or event can be observed from their location.
Knowledge sharing across communities: Astronomers often collaborate globally because of weather conditions and viewing limitations.
“If it’s cloudy here, I can still get data from a friend abroad.”
Amateur astronomers as a resource: Citizen science is a crucial part of research, enthusiasts contribute valuable data on asteroids, variable stars, and light pollution.
User experience gap: Existing apps (Stellarium, SkyMap) provide functional data but lack storytelling elements about stars and astronomical events.
Solutions
Astronova is a collaborative platform for amateur astronomers 💫
Insights
Amateur astronomers need collaborative, engaging, and informative tools to explore the sky 🔭
Each key insight from the user research directly informed a core feature in our solution.
Insights
Our personas: two young enthusiasts and one expert 🚀
Based on our research, we created three personas: two young amateur astronomy enthusiasts and one professional researcher.
Design
Exploration through dynamic cards on a 3D star map 🪐
After conducting our research and realizing that our main goal is to encourage exploration among young users, we designed the main dashboard as a system of floating windows on top of a 3D map.
This way, users can always continue exploring new maps and stars, while still having quick access to all other features.
Each card has three display modes- large, medium, and small, so users can minimize it to focus on exploration, enlarge it for more detail, or click to navigate to its feature page.
In addition, we created our own star designs. Since our project is based on the TRAPPIST-1 system, which is extremely distant and lacks precise imagery, we relied on NASA’s available data and scientific hypotheses, while still applying our own visual interpretation.
Technical Approach
Realizing our vision with Framer and Base 44 💻
Final Design
The Astronova experience, design and features 🌌
The following video presents the finalized AstroNova experience, showcasing the main user flow.
Feel free to watch the flow video or experience AstroNova yourself.
Full User Flow:
Core features:
3D Sky Exploration
Navigate the night sky in an intuitive 3D interface, compare stars and constellations, access detailed information on each celestial body, and visualize data through interactive graphs.
Community Forum
A space for open discussions between amateurs and experts, with topic-based filtering to help users easily find relevant conversations, tips, and shared experiences.
Citizen Science
Users can actively contribute to real scientific research by answering questions, tagging patterns, and identifying phenomena.
Personal Impact
Through this project, I learned: 🌟
Complex Systems
I learned how to structure and design for a large-scale, multi-layered platform with diverse user needs.
New Technologies
I explored tools like Framer and Base 44, expanding my design toolkit and technical fluency.
Design Challenge
I translated an abstract, highly complex subject, space and astronomy, into an interactive and intuitive user experience that feels engaging and approachable.
