Immersive Web Experience
Breakthrough
An award-winning immersive web experience that extended National Geographic Channel's Breakthrough series across desktop, mobile, and VR.
Project details
- Role
- Software Engineer Intern
- Timeline
- May 2015 – September 2015
- Duration
- 5 months
- Client
- National Geographic Channel
- Status
- Released; no longer available
Skills
Tools
Key Contributions
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Built explorable 3D environments. Modeled and assembled the spaces that carried the experience’s science and technology stories using Clara.io.
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Connected content and interaction. Used JavaScript to position 3D assets and help implement interactions between visitors and the website.
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Supported quality throughout development. Repeatedly tested the experience, documented issues, and verified behavior across its interactive features.
Overview
Breakthrough was an interactive 3D companion to the National Geographic Channel series of the same name. It invited visitors to explore emerging technologies and consider how they could shape the future, expanding on topics introduced by the television program with additional media and detail.
Neo-Pangea designed the experience to work on desktop and mobile browsers, with a headset mode that made the web environment more immersive. The project later won the Responsive Design category at the 2016 SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards.
My Role
I contributed to Breakthrough during my software engineering internship at Neo-Pangea. My work crossed design, development, and quality assurance: I created 3D environments, helped program interactive behavior, placed 3D content in the experience, and tested the site throughout production.
The project gave me an early opportunity to contribute to a polished client experience on a multidisciplinary production team.
Building the 3D World
I used Clara.io, a browser-based 3D modeling tool, to build environments around the scientific ideas featured in the experience. The goal was not simply to decorate a page; the environment had to organize information spatially and guide visitors between videos, explanations, expert perspectives, and visual examples.
I also used JavaScript to place the 3D assets I created and help connect them to interactive behavior. That combination of modeling and programming let me work on both the visual composition and the way visitors moved through it.
Immersive Across Devices
Breakthrough needed to preserve the same content-rich experience across desktop and mobile browsers while also supporting mobile VR viewing. That range affected how environments, controls, and information could be arranged: the interface had to remain understandable whether a visitor was clicking, touching, or looking around through a headset.
Working on the project showed me how interaction design, responsive behavior, performance, and visual hierarchy become tightly connected in an immersive web experience.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance was a continuing part of my role rather than a final handoff. I tested the site and its mechanics throughout development, recorded the issues I found, and helped the team verify changes as the experience evolved.
Testing an interactive 3D site meant paying attention to more than whether a page loaded. Navigation, content placement, interactive states, and the overall flow all had to hold together across supported devices.
Outcome
Breakthrough launched as a public National Geographic Channel experience and won the 2016 SXSW Interactive Innovation Award for Responsive Design. The recognition reflected the project’s integration of content, aesthetics, functionality, and cross-device interaction.
For me, it was formative professional experience: I contributed 3D work, JavaScript, and testing to a large client project and saw how those disciplines combine in a production interactive experience. The original website is no longer live.