My Time at NASA Ames Research Center
While in graduate school from 2003 to 2005, I had the privilege of designing and coding web sites for Larry Arend, the leading color scientist at the Ames Research Center who ran NASA's Color Usage Research Lab (CURL).Honestly, the primary work I did was nothing remarkable. The great learning experiences came from seeing how NASA and its scientists worked. I had never been part of a pure research environment or a large government operation.
Not surprisingly, I also learned a considerable amount about the use of color in complex interfaces. The funding for CURL came in part from a desire to redesign the FAA's aged monotone air traffic control system. Another interesting part of the work was the opportunity to perform an analysis of new color-based air traffic control software.
