In my previous post I talked about entering the build stage of our project without a complete plan over what the final infographic was going to look like or how it was going to behave. That might sound foolhardy and naive to some, but for W+W we start each project knowing that a voyage of creative and technical discovery awaits. With a project as intricate and as complex as this – uncertainty in initial planning actually serves the creative process better. It allows us to make discoveries and react to them based on creating working prototypes and versions, rather than second guessing the outcome of a myriad of variables.
At the start of this stage – the client was happy with where we were – but were naturally concerned that nothing looked very ‘Christian Aid’ yet. And for good reason too. We had purposefully left the style guides on a shelf gathering dust. It was time though to start tying together our initial ‘look and feel’ designs with the actual graphic style of the Poverty Over campaign.
For the build of this Infographic – we worked in weekly sprints. Each week I presented the development work to both the Agency and the Client at the same time. Credit to Tyrone at BMB who allowed this to happen and massive credit as well to Tom, the Christian Aid Marketing Director who entered into this agile spirit of things with much enthusiasm.
What did this weekly review mean? So what if there was one? You might be asking these questions….
Well -it meant that each week we would review our progress and look at our accomplishments. Where the infographic was working, where it wasn’t, why it wasn’t. Each week I would take the team feedback and then reprioritise the tasks and features that we would work on in the next sprint. I didn’t use the words Agile much and I didn’t force the idea that this was a revolutionary way of working. It was simply a weekly review of where we were at, albeit presented to the entire team as one and with a clear agenda.
In the background myself and the team were constantly working out which were the most important areas to focus on and in what order to do it in. The entire creative process felt fairly organic – but was underpinned with structure and good organisation.
As the sprints rolled past we rolled through the following features in this prioritised order:
1. Creating a palette and look and feel that a) allowed the user to read the data in the clearest way and b) was on brand for christian Aid.
2. Working out what to do with data anomalies – what happens when a country is missing data for a few years?
3. Working out what to do with countries that had changed borders, names, had been split up or merged? I can tell you a lot about history now that I didn’t know before this project!
4. How much tilt and ’3Dness’ is needed? Does the user need to spin the map a full 360 degrees?
5. How do we display contextual information? This ended up being the timeline pop ups that display key dates.
6. Do we show the future? Can we predict it? What is Christian Aid asking the user to do?
7. How else can I filter the map? We built around double the amount of filters that currently exist on the site. In the end we decided that some were simply too complex for the user to get their heads around. Sometimes less is more!
8. Allow the user to zoom in and study the detail closer.
9. Allow the user to move the map around the page.
10 How to represent scale? (One of the lessons we learned from our research is that a map must always have a scale)
11. Create an intro movie that introduces the concept
12. Create an intro movie that mimics the data and displays the correct poverty levels
There were of course many other themes and features that we worked through each week. The reality was that we were always focusing on the most important or most risky issues. As weeks went by – so many answers kept falling into place, not by design, but by discovery and by a repetitive and sensible approach to experimentation.
In the next and final instalment of this case study I will talk about our final delivery of the Infographic and all of the other elements of the website that supported it.
Poverty Over – A Case Study, Part 4 – Delivering
It was our job to display and highlight the following key parts of the story:
1. The world has, on the most part, moved out of poverty especially over the last 60 years.
2. There are however vast parts of Africa and Asia that still have a a way to go.
3. Countries that have been extremely poor before have come out of poverty.
4. With further investment, development and aid – it is possible to move the countries remaining in poverty into prosperity.
So have we achieved what we set out to do? Well, early indications are that sharing of the site through Twitter and Facebook is going through the roof – which is nice to hear. However, in the spirit of continuous improvement – let us know what you think. Does it work? What could we have done better? We’ll take your comments on board and hopefully bear them in mind on our next interactive infographic!