Cultural Constellations was developed by myself and Kaitlin McArdle, a fellow exhibit developer, astronomy expert, Union Steward, and now friend ♥

Thinking of possible interactions for this exhibit, we were like What if you could draw your own constellation in the stars?

References and Inspiration

This concept was heavily inspired and validated by and borrows data from Tabletopwhale (Eleanor Lutz) and Nadieh Bremer.

Sketches

Wireframes

We decided on having a kiosk experience with an area for other visitors to relax and watch what other visitors had drawn.

High-Fidelity Prototype

Technical Prototype

While the wireframes are helpful for understanding what the user interaction would be, before we could understand what the user should do, I needed to understand what was possible with the data and technology on hand. This was my first time using D3, so I bought a book, hid from meetings for a week, and did a deep dive to learn some fun things.

My favorite part of this prototype is WEB SOCKETS! It’s basically a chat platform but with the stars. 🤯

The functionality of this prototype is not user friendly, and unfortunately, the client nixed this exhibit. Someday I’d like to get back to it and make it the StarChat platform that it was destined to be.