Hi all,
Just wanted to weigh in with my impressions from the presentation that the IJDH team gave last Thursday night. First off, I want to say that it was a very impressive presentation, with an interesting emphasis on process -- the ordered steps that they were recommending IJDH take. It struck me how there are so may ways to present your strategy, and this seemed like a great framework for doing so.
What I liked most about what I saw was that it was evident how the team had allowed each step in their own process shape the decisions that they made for susequent steps. Once they had an idea of the mission, the audience followed from that; the narratives followed from the audience decisions; the IA and interaction design followed from that narratives, etc. I also was very impressed that you defined two different sets of narratives for new vs. returning visitors (an often neglected distinction).
The one area that I though could be impoved on was content management, particularly with respect to the news and the blog. It may have just been a blind-spot in your planning, but many of us thought the blog could just replace the 'news' function and take center stage as the organization's main value-adding activity.
All-in-all a job very well done though. Congratulations.
Ravi
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I agree with Ravi that you did a nice job of storyboarding the site for various users. I also liked that you gave some thought to new users vs. returning users and what kind of experience each would have. And it was interesting to see the progression in your Home Page mock-ups. You're definitely moving IJDH in a more sophisticated direction w/ design, navigation, navigational consistency & nomenclature, and so on.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the weakness in your presentation was contents. Just because the site is "niche" doesn't mean it "doesn't have that much to offer," as I believe one team member said during the exchange w/ the judges.
Indeed, as Nancy Scola pointed out, even if an organization is essentially a one-man/woman show, there's no reason to play small on the Web. In this case, the cause--helping Haitians who are victims of human rights abuse w/ their legal needs--is about as noble as it gets in the "dot org" world.
And, compared to, say, UNANIMA or Lend-a-Hand India, IJDH has a huge advantage. Its exec director, Brian Concannon, is a star among a certain group. People who are in the field of Haiti and human rights know him and want to hear what he has to say. They look to him for the inside story that doesn't get reported in mainstream media. In my view, this makes him a
* natural blogger--and Twitterer. I agree w/ the judges (and Ravi) that the blog should be front and center. Whenever there are important news items or events, Concannon should be blogging (and twittering) about them.
* potential podcaster. He's an experienced speaker, so maybe doing a five-minute podcast per week on the latest news would not be difficult. Could he ask one of the super-rich people associated w/ his group to donate the money for the equipment and training?
* Facebook user. His organization has a Facebook page, but does he have one? Also, is he trying to garner support for his various campaigns on Facebook? You didn't cover this in your presentation though the creator of the organization's Facebook page was present...
Long story short: Concannon should do a crash course in social media asap!
Also, IJDH is associated with a big intellectual star, Paul Farmer, and with Hollywood stars like Matt Damon. Why not suggest that they leverage some of that--have Farmer and Damon do some guest blog postings (instead of just slapping their photos on the site's front page).
Lastly, and this is related to my point about social media, I think you neglected an important part of the activist audience--young people like your fellow SIPA students. Some of them (like Scott) know Haiti well. Others don't know it well but are open to being educated--and their energy could be harnessed to help out with IJDH's various campaigns. Maybe they wouldn't give money or help w/ legal services, but they'd do other kinds of things: write a thesis about human rights abuses and include Haiti in the study, join a campus-wide campaign to raise awareness, etc.
Nancy Scola suggested that you add a section w/ basic intro, maps, photos, links to CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html), etc. I agree this might be helpful though I wonder whether a niche site like this would attract people who are totally unaware of what's going on.
But for people who are already in tune with human rights issues (again, you could storyboard that audience using the persona of a fellow SIPA student), it would help if the site also offered what Scott called the "stories that don't get told." I could see, for instance, interviews w/ lawyers who have conducted various campaigns and/or Haitians who've been helped by IJDH--assuming they are free to speak.
Take, for example, IJDH's health and human rights prison project (http://www.ijdh.org/HHRPrison.htm). When I read the project intro, I immediately wondered if Brian might be able to come up with material for an audio slideshow similar to the one Ravi made for the Earth Institute, telling the story of how a lawyer's intervention ensured that a prisoner could remain healthy for the trial, etc. (Perhaps suggest that Brian ask SIPA to suggest a student who could create this slideshow for him--i.e., someone specializing in multimedia.)
To sum up, while I found the presentation very clear, I would have preferred more "blue sky," especially on social media and, related to that, the potential for increasing the activist audience. After all, this stuff is taking place in our backyard, not the other side of the world.
Thanks for both of your reviews. We definitely have addressed many additional areas of the website design and features in our final report. We will also take your comments into consideration and address the issues you have raised with our overall recommendations. Thank you.
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