When a client approached Digital Eskimo with a desire to build awareness about Peak Oil, we began our Considered Design process with a workshop that uncovered a raft of technical and frightening information on the topic. Through further research efforts however we also found a range of more hopeful signs that the the world could adapt to peak Oil. There had been an oil crisis in Cuba in the 70s and a documentary on the topic led us to investigate modern Permaculture, an Australian invention which ultimately led us to Transition Towns and the whole localisation movement.
Our strategic recommendation was that the we create a project that built knowledge and understanding around re-localisation – thus avoiding the contentious and divisive themes of Peak Oil, while still championing intelligent responses to its impact. The end result is a prototype website where users share content in the form of text, photos and videos that tell their stories about improving their neighbourhoods.
Outcomes
The live beta of live local was launched in April, 2009 and now has over 350 members and hundreds of experiments. After the successful pilot phase live local was incorporated into a Not For Profit foundation and is currently designing its strategy for growth ahead of looking for further partners to expand its mission to return Australians to a more local way of living.
Challenges
The website needed to be broadly accessible both for users to browse and contribute. Because the target audience was ordinary citizens who wouldn’t get personal training on how to use the system, the user interfaces needed to be simple enough for someone with basic internet knowledge to figure out, but powerful enough to generate interesting content. The project also came with a long feature wish list but limited time and budget to implement.
Design Strategies
Our iterative design and development process was ideal for dealing with the restricted timeline and lengthy feature list. We understood that the development process could not be forecast with complete accuracy, so we divided the site’s evolution into iterations and met to discuss priorities for development at the beginning of each one. Using Drupal, which provides some “out-of-the-box” functionality, allowed us to release early working versions that were testable and usable, and crucial to our iterative approach.
The basic design template was established early; in this instance we developed a working style guide to provide further design guidance rather than rigid wireframes and visual screens – which weren’t desirable because of budget and time restraints. For example, in the style template for tabs we defined a standard visual approach that developers can implement wherever tabs are required. Active, background and hover states are described.
Working with those documents, our developers were able to build early versions of the site and fine-tune the style guide and design needs in collaboration with our designers as the project progressed. For end-user usability, we customised Drupal’s content management system and designed a simple editing interface to make adding content easier for end users. “Experiments”, blog posts, static pages and comments can all be added, edited and administered from the one user friendly interface, and permissions for various users added and/or adjusted as required instantaneously.
As an example, we will look at the second iteration of live local, which was a two week process. The first iteration had produced a functional core and the ability for users to register and create their own content.
In the second iteration, we prioritised 11 user stories, which included adding RSS functionality, adding an abuse-reporting function (for users to flag inappropriate content and comments) and developing the visual structure. Every user story in the project was assigned a point value indicating its relative difficulty to implement, and the project owners, developers, and producers then identified their priorities.
On each day of the iteration, we had a standup meeting in which the web developers and designers reported their successes, next tasks and hindrances that had emerged since the previous meeting. Decisions were made in the standup meeting to ensure the iteration moves as smoothly as possible.
The second iteration was reasonably successful, tracking close to an ideal outcome, with about 24 of 30 total points completed in the round. At the end, the same group of stakeholders reassembled to observe the developers’ work in an early working version of the site. This meeting ensured that the project owners are engaged in the development process and had intimate understanding of the decisions made throughout.
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Credits
- Creative Director: Dave Gravina
- Producer: John MacFarlane
- Designer: Chris Gaul
- Developer: Jeremy Epstein
