STIX
UI Design, Scientific Tools
A visual redesign of the ground control interface for STIX, an X-ray telescope aboard the ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
Improving the readability of data coming back from a telescope orbiting the sun.
The Problem
STIX, the Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays, is one of ten instruments aboard the ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. It captures images and spectra of solar flares, some of the most energetic events in our solar system, and transmits that data back to researchers on the ground.
The interface the research team used to work with that data had grown organically rather than being designed. Readability was poor, information hierarchy was unclear, and button labelling had become inconsistent enough that users were regularly confused about what actions would do. When you're working with complex scientific data from a spacecraft, that kind of interface friction is a real problem.
The Solution
The scope was deliberately constrained. The goal was not to rebuild the tool or change how it worked, but to give it a visual language that made the existing functionality clearer and easier to use without disrupting the workflows the team already relied on.
I redesigned the visual hierarchy to surface the most important data more clearly, improved readability across the interface, and audited and rewrote button labels and UI copy where wording was causing confusion. Being a native English speaker in a multilingual research environment turned out to be a quiet advantage here, a lot of the ambiguous labelling had accumulated through non-native translation rather than deliberate design decisions, and cleaning that up made a tangible difference to how clearly the interface communicated.
The result was a more legible, more navigable interface, without touching the core functionality the research team depended on.
Impact
Mission
ESA Solar Orbiter
Instruments On Board
10
