Jacob Burgess

Your Guide To A Galaxy Far, Far Away

An interactive Star Wars books website

Overview

Ever since I was a kid I have been obsessed with Star Wars. The lightsabers, the ships and the different stories that make up the universe have always been such interesting things to me.

When I was in High School I started to read different books that are set in the Star Wars galaxy, but there was always one big problem. Where do you start reading when there are hundreds of books to choose from?

Ever since I was a kid I have been obsessed with Star Wars. The lightsabers, the ships and the different stories that make up the universe have always been such interesting things to me.

When I was in High School I started to read different books that are set in the Star Wars galaxy, but there was always one big problem. Where do you start reading when there are hundreds of books to choose from?

You've taken your first steps into a larger world

The first Star Wars book that I ever read was "Heir to the Empire" by Timothy Zahn. My dad recommended this book to me as one of his favorites and I quickly fell in love with the expanded universe of Star Wars.

After reading my first Star Wars books I then had the question of what comes next? Luckily I was able to look online and find a website called "yodasdatapad.com." This website was a great resource for finding the timeline order of the books so that you could always tell what came next.

There was only one problem. I hated the design of it.

The first Star Wars book that I ever read was "Heir to the Empire" by Timothy Zahn. My dad recommended this book to me as one of his favorites and I quickly fell in love with the expanded universe of Star Wars.

After reading my first Star Wars books I then had the question of what comes next? Luckily I was able to look online and find a website called "yodasdatapad.com." This website was a great resource for finding the timeline order of the books so that you could always tell what came next.

There was only one problem. I hated the design of it.

You don't know the power of the Dark Side

Nearly ten years after I originally started reading Star Wars books, I decded that it was time for me to try to build a website using my recently gained UX skills and the help of Figma Make.

I began my journey to building GalacticTimeline.com by finding things that matched the look and feel that I wanted my website to have. One thing that was a big inspiration for the way I designed was Letterboxd. I have been a Letterboxd user for several years and I have always loved how it puts movie posters front and center in its design.

Nearly ten years after I originally started reading Star Wars books, I decded that it was time for me to try to build a website using my recently gained UX skills and the help of Figma Make.

I began my journey to building GalacticTimeline.com by finding things that matched the look and feel that I wanted my website to have. One thing that was a big inspiration for the way I designed was Letterboxd. I have been a Letterboxd user for several years and I have always loved how it puts movie posters front and center in its design.

I was but the learner, now I am the master

After taking some notes on Letterboxd, it was time to start building the website. I used resources such as Wookieepedia, yodasdatapad and Youtini to make sure my timeline was accurate and to get all of the book covers.

I eventually ended up uploading the information for 449 different books. I'm not usually a programmer, but Figma Make was able to give me a template of how to fill out the information. In the end I created a document with 7,659 lines that detailed each individual book by author, release date, title, id, timeline placement, timeline label, book types, cover URL, Amazon link and description. This was a tremendous task in organization and digital asset management.

Your focus determines your reality

Once I had built out all of the information I wanted displayed on the site, I thought that the next best steps would be to add some filtering and sorting features so that users can get to the content they want faster.

I had already built things such as release dates, timeline placements and book types into the code of the website, so I knew these would be a great way to add filters. However, one thing that I really wanted to add was the eras that the stories are set in. This could use the timeline placement to put books that happen around the same time near each other. I eventually settled on 16 different eras to put the stories into which would hopefully help users access the stories they care about the most in the most efficient way.

Always pass on what you have learned

Galactic Timeline was a project I always wanted to do. I love the Star Wars universe and how it can be shared with so many different people. Putting this project out on the internet for people to use for free was such an amazing experience for me. I loved seeing how many people the website helped through Google and Amazon analytics. As of writing this, I have had over 1100 active users visit the website and have logged 9.7k events.

This project will likely never be finished since more books come out every year, but I am excited to keep sharing the journey with new users everyday!

To see the website check out https://galactictimeline.com/

I was but the learner, now I am the master

After taking some notes on Letterboxd, it was time to start building the website. I used resources such as Wookieepedia, yodasdatapad and Youtini to make sure my timeline was accurate and to get all of the book covers.

I eventually ended up uploading the information for 449 different books. I'm not usually a programmer, but Figma Make was able to give me a template of how to fill out the information. In the end I created a document with 7659 lines that detailed each individual book by author, release date, title, id, timeline placement, timeline label, book types, cover URL, Amazon link and description. This was a tremendous task in organization and digital asset management.

Your focus determines your reality

Once I had built out all of the information I wanted displayed on the site, I thought that the next best steps would be to add some filtering and sorting features so that users can get to the content they want faster.

I had already built things such as release dates, timeline placements and book types into the code of the website, so I knew these would be a great way to add filters. However, one thing that I really wanted to add was the eras that the stories are set in. This could use the timeline placement to put books that happen around the same time near each other. I eventually settled on 16 different eras to put the stories into which would hopefully help users access the stories they care about the most in the most efficient way.

Always pass on what you have learned

Galactic Timeline was a project I always wanted to do. I love the Star Wars universe and how it can be shared with so many different people. Putting this project out on the internet for people to use for free was such an amazing experience for me. I loved seeing how many people the website helped through Google and Amazon analytics. As of writing this, I have had over 1100 active users visit the website and have logged 9.7k events.

This project will likely never be finished since more books come out every year, but I am excited to keep sharing the journey with new users everyday!

To see the website check out https://galactictimeline.com/