An activity-aware workspace for preserving the context of transient work in microgravity.
Spring–Summer 2026 · 3-person design team · Product Designer · Human Spaceflight
Developed as a UW MHCI+D capstone project, my contributions included research synthesis, systems framing, interaction design, prototyping, and visual storytelling. I joined the Aurelia Institute capstone after space had already become a recurring subject in my art and design work, and wanted to explore that interest through a more rigorous human-centered design process. The project was selected for presentation at SpaceCHI 2026.
ENTERING THE PROBLEM SPACE
First, we had to understand what working in space actually looks like.
Temporary work surface aboard the ISS. Image: NASA
Dense onboard stowage. Image: NASA
We began by immersing ourselves in the operational reality of life in microgravity. We studied astronaut accounts and ethnographies, NASA and ISS documentation, habitat photography, inventory and stowage systems, and prior research to understand how objects are stored, retrieved, used, and returned.
Stowage kept surfacing as a persistent human-factors and operational problem: constrained usable volume, dense environments, difficult access, restraint requirements, and the burden of searching and reorganizing.
KEEPING TRACK OF OBJECTS WAS ALREADY WORK
Systems meant to help crews keep track of objects could also create additional work. Logging, remembering, labeling, searching, correcting, and returning objects all competed with the task itself.
Tracking should not become another task.
INITIAL RESEARCH QUESTION
How could stowage become more legible without making tracking another task?
We scoped the project around near-term LEO habitats, where established spaceflight practices may increasingly intersect with commercial operators and occupants with different levels of training and procedural experience.
Our initial focus was stowage legibility: helping people understand where objects belong, how they are retrieved and returned, and what requires attention without introducing another system they must actively maintain.
JOURNEY MAPPING + EXPERT INQUIRY
We followed objects from retrieval to return.
We traced how objects moved through work rather than treating storage as a static endpoint. Journey mapping and expert inquiry examined staging, use, movement, interruption, handoff, borrowing, and return.
OBJECT JOURNEY
ONBOARD STOWAGE → RETRIEVAL → TEMPORARY STAGING → ACTIVE USE → MOVE / CARRY → HANDOFF → RETURN
EXPERT INQUIRY
Five anonymized perspectives expanded the problem space: commercial space design; aerospace and computational systems; commercial spacecraft design; space logistics; and former astronaut / space research.
Their guidance surfaced recurring considerations: hospitality and privacy in multi-tenant habitats; simplicity, packing efficiency, robustness, and graceful degradation; microgravity, restraint, materials, ergonomics, orientation, and maintainability; shared resources and launch efficiency; and the improvisation, negotiation, priority, and ground–orbit mismatch of lived habitat use.
VISUAL SPECTRUM
Future habitat + occupants → engineering → physical constraints → logistics → lived experience
The opportunity lives in the unstable middle states, where objects are neither fully stored nor fully lost.
ONBOARD STOWAGE → RETRIEVAL → TEMPORARY STAGING → ACTIVE USE → MOVE / CARRY → HANDOFF → RETURN
[OBJECT JOURNEY MAP — real or rebuilt project artifact — wide]
[ANONYMIZED INTERVIEW / SYNTHESIS ARTIFACTS — future habitat + occupants → engineering → physical constraints → logistics → lived experience]
REFRAMING THE PROBLEM
A wrench can be “temporarily staged” and still be ambiguous.
OBJECT STATE
Wrench
Temporarily staged
ACTIVITY CONTEXT
Wrench
Temporarily staged for ongoing maintenance
Tracking can tell us that an object moved, and status can describe its current condition. But during work, objects also acquire relationships: what activity they support, who is using them, what they are being used with, and whether a change is expected.
Location alone did not capture an object’s relationship to ongoing work.
We changed the unit of design.
OBJECT → ACTIVITY
WHAT WE LEARNED
Objects move through temporary states while work is underway: STORED → RETRIEVED → STAGED → IN USE → SHARED / MOVED → RETURNED.
The opportunity lives in the unstable middle states.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Manual tracking interrupts work → PASSIVE OVER ACTIVE → Capture state through normal object movement where possible.
Microgravity weakens conventional orientation → OMNIDIRECTIONAL → Keep geometry and interaction understandable across body orientations.
Dense state information can become visual noise → LEGIBLE OVER COMPLEX → Use hierarchy, form, lighting, material, and redundant cues.
Engineering complexity is a liability → MECHANICALLY ENCODED → Let physical geometry and obvious affordances carry interaction meaning before adding computation.
Knowing where an object is doesn’t tell us what it’s doing there.
LOCATION / STATUS
Wrench — Temporarily staged here.
ACTIVITY CONTEXT
Wrench — Temporarily staged as part of ongoing maintenance.
Tracking can tell us where an object is, and status can describe what happened to it. During work, objects also acquire relationships: what activity they support, who is using them, what they are being used with, and whether a change is expected.
We changed the unit of design.
OBJECT → ACTIVITY
We stopped treating each object as an isolated unit of stowage and began designing around the temporary workspace created by an activity. Objects become related through people, tasks, locations, and other objects—relationships that shift as work is interrupted, shared, moved, or resumed.
[OBJECT-STATE / SYNTHESIS ARTIFACT — wide]
[LOCATION VS. ACTIVITY CONTEXT COMPARISON]
[ACTIVITY-RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM — person · activity · tools · workspace — wide]
Three findings changed the problem.
01 — MANUAL TRACKING BREAKS UNDER PRESSURE
Implication: Reduce the amount of active tracking required from the crew.
02 — STOWAGE IS A WORKFLOW, NOT A CABINET
Implication: Support staging, use, interruption, handoff, and return.
03 — LEGIBILITY IS FUNCTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Implication: Communicate workspace state through form, light, and redundant cues.
Transient work involves changing combinations of tools and materials. Dedicated holders are effective when objects are predetermined, but they become limiting when the workspace itself needs to adapt.
EARLIER DIRECTION
Object-specific attachment
LIMITATION
Required anticipating each object and configuration.
DESIGN SHIFT
Shape-adaptive retention.
RESULT
One surface could support changing tools and temporary arrangements.
[EARLY OBJECT-SPECIFIC RESTRAINT CONCEPT — 4:3]
[PHYSICAL ADAPTIVE-RETENTION PROTOTYPE — 4:3]
[FINAL NET WORKSPACE RENDER — 4:3]
THE SYSTEM
NET combines adaptive physical retention, sensing, visible workspace state, and networked activity context in a modular transient-work surface.
[FINAL ISOLATED NET PRODUCT RENDER — large]
[EXPLODED NET SYSTEM DIAGRAM — 16:9]
Front frame · translucent cover · hexagonal frame + integrated lighting · proposed adaptive textile retention surface · sensor array · rear mounting structure
The FibeRobo-inspired textile represents a proposed material direction, not a team-developed or flight-validated mechanism.
The geometry works at two scales.
HUMAN SCALE
One-handed · Omnidirectional · Adaptive
HABITAT SCALE
Deployable · Modular · Networked
[HUMAN-SCALE NET INTERACTION — 4:5]
[MULTIPLE NETS / HABITAT CONFIGURATION — 4:5]
HOW IT WORKS
NET treats transient work as a lifecycle: a workspace is established, allowed to evolve through interruption or sharing, and deliberately resolved.
PRIMARY LIFECYCLE
ESTABLISH → EVOLVE → RECONCILE
WITHIN EVOLVE
Work underway · paused / unattended workspace · object temporarily used elsewhere
ESTABLISH
Create an activity workspace.
PAUSE
Preserve unfinished work.
SHARE
Let objects move without losing activity context.
RECONCILE
Deliberately resolve the workspace.
[ESTABLISH → EVOLVE → RECONCILE LIFECYCLE DIAGRAM — wide]
[SELECTED CINEMATIC PAUSE / SHARE / RECONCILE RENDERS]
A missing object isn’t necessarily a problem.
Presence tells us what changed.
Context tells us whether it matters.
PRESENT
Object remains within the active workspace.
ACCOUNTED FOR
Object moved, but the change is understood.
UNRESOLVED
Change cannot yet be explained and requires attention.
[PRESENT / ACCOUNTED FOR / UNRESOLVED COMPARISON — wide]
Presence / absence describes physical change. Accounted / unresolved describes whether that change requires attention.
WHAT WE TESTED
Physical prototypes: fit · deformation · spatial footprint · restraint · insertion / removal · repositioning · one-handed interaction.
Scenario walkthroughs and expert feedback: interruption · handoff · activity context · accounted vs. unresolved state · workflow plausibility.
WHAT WE LEARNED
The retention concept could be investigated under terrestrial conditions. The activity model supported further workflow evaluation. Expert review helped assess plausibility within anticipated crew practices.
WHAT REMAINS OPEN
Actual microgravity behavior · flight-ready material feasibility · sensing reliability · integrated multi-NET operation · multi-user performance · cognitive / workload effects.
[PHYSICAL PROTOTYPE TESTING — 2–3 images]
[SCENARIO / VIDEO EVALUATION STILL]
ACCESS
Reach · grip · mounting · orientation · varied bodies and physical abilities
PERCEPTION
Redundant visual · tactile · symbolic state cues; do not rely on color alone
AUTHORITY + PRIVACY
Borrowing · transfer · authorization · history · information access
ENGINEERING + ENVIRONMENT
Launch mass · packed volume · energy · durability · repair · replacement · end of life
REFLECTION
Operational literature and domain expertise informed conditions we could not reproduce. Physical prototypes explored form, restraint, material behavior, and one-handed interaction. Modeling, rendering, and video explored interruption, handoff, and multi-user scenarios.
The project changed what I considered an interaction. It existed between people, objects, spatial memory, physical constraints, and institutional systems.
For me, the most important shift was moving from designing where objects go to designing how ongoing work remains understandable as objects move.
[PROCESS MONTAGE — domain research → expert inquiry → prototype → 3D model → scenario video — wide]
[FINAL NET BEAUTY SHOT — cinematic wide]
NET began as a stowage problem and evolved into a system for making ongoing work legible across interruption, sharing, and return.
Next case study →
References
Selected scholarly, technical, and primary research sources informing the project.
SELECTED LITERATURE + TECHNICAL SOURCES
[1] Forman, Jack, et al. 2023. “FibeRobo: Fabricating 4D Fiber Interfaces by Continuous Drawing of Temperature Tunable Liquid Crystal Elastomers.” Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’23), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606732
PRIMARY RESEARCH + PROJECT EVIDENCE
[P1] Team Rocket. 2026. Object Journey Map: representative workflow.
[P2] Team Rocket. 2026. Research Synthesis / Affinity Mapping.
[P3] Team Rocket. 2026. N.E.T. Prototype Evaluation Notes.
[P4] Team Rocket. 2026. N.E.T. Scenario / Video Evaluation.
External literature supports background and technical precedent. Primary project evidence supports our findings, synthesis, design principles, and prototype observations.