One item at a time
The archive works better when one piece of content is given room to breathe. I centered the interface around the current selection rather than trying to show too much at once.
Editorial content explorer
Astronomy APOD Explorer
A cleaner way to browse NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day archive through date-based exploration and calmer presentation.
Role
Interface design, frontend engineering, motion
Scope
Interface design, content hierarchy, exploration flow
Context
Solo project
Astronomy APOD Explorer
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Date navigation
2026
Feb 21
Archive
Today
Reading rhythm
Overview
An editorial interface for a dense public archive.
Astronomy APOD Explorer rethinks how a rich archive is browsed. Instead of forcing the user through a dated experience, it reframes the content with calmer hierarchy, clearer navigation, and more editorial pacing.
NASA's APOD archive has great content but a browsing experience that feels more archival than approachable. I wanted to see what happens if the interface treats the material like something worth slowly exploring.
Timeframe
Focused frontend redesign project
Challenge
The source archive is rich, but the browsing experience feels dated and makes discovery less inviting than the content deserves.
Product angle
This project shows my interest in turning dense or awkward information spaces into interfaces that feel much easier to explore.
Goals
What I wanted to achieve
Make archive browsing feel simpler and more inviting
Keep the imagery as the focal point of the experience
Use motion and layout to support reading rather than distract from it
Constraints
The archive content and structure were fixed by the API source
The interface needed to remain lightweight and readable around image-heavy content
The product had to balance exploration with restraint instead of becoming overly decorative
Process
How the project took shape
01
Treat the content like editorial material
The key move was to stop thinking of the project as an API viewer and instead treat it like an exploration experience around a single featured item and its surrounding metadata.
02
Simplify navigation around date selection
Because the archive is inherently time-based, I used date browsing as the primary interaction anchor. That keeps the product legible and avoids adding unnecessary interface complexity.
03
Use motion to reinforce focus
The animation choices stay subtle because the imagery already has enough emotional weight. Motion is there to support transitions and orientation, not to become the main event.
Decisions
Product and interface calls that shaped the result
Editorial hierarchy over dashboard UI
This project needed reading rhythm more than widget logic, so I used stronger content framing and calmer typography instead of typical app-style modules.
Restrained visual treatment
Because the content is already visually rich, the interface needed to stay quiet. The product becomes better when the UI supports discovery without competing for attention.