how clear is your focus?
You need to understand the big picture to make sure that your online efforts are on target and will elicit the right response. I’ll ask challenging questions and carefully listen to the answers. These are the keys to pinpointing an organization’s highest goals and needs.
You get experienced recommendations for the tools and techniques that produce strong results. And a heads up on when its time to change tactics. If you need help just thinking things through or putting advice into practice, I can pitch in there too.
Past Projects
Mobilisation Lab (Greenpeace International)
IA and UX Strategy: As part of a strategic expansion to bring their innovative knowledge sharing to the wider social activism community MobLab underwent a full website redesign. Moblab asked me to advise on the changes to the architecture and design direction. Teasing apart the large collection of stories, resources and events and suggesting additional usability improvements were the highlights of this short but highly enjoyable collaboration.
Edutopia (George Lucas Educational Foundation)
Mobile Strategy: I was first engaged by Edutopia to help them plan out transitioning their Drupal website to a responsive design. Working closely with creative and technical staff I assisted them in mapping out key pages and making decisions about how to handle problem areas. And there were more than a few of those. A comprehensive set of wireframes allowed their designer and developers to visualize where changes were needed and implement the results.
IA Strategy: With their impending move to Drupal 7, Edutopia asked me to help them think through their site organization to make the most of the transition. Disparate content types and taxonomies all needed to be brought under one roof and new navigation pathways for key audiences needed to be developed. Using personas, scenarios and Design Studio methodology I helped them sort out not only content, but also stakeholder priorities. Although the process is still in motion, I can’t wait to see the final result.
The Aspen Institute Planning and Evaluation Project (APEP)
Brand Strategy: As full believers in smart planning and calling in experts when needed, APEP contracted me to help them work out an authentic brand platform for their program. While it was important to stay within the parent brand, this energetic program needed some way to express their unique personality. I helped them select a graphic style that set them apart and developed a logo that ties things together. The process itself helped the program to identify areas for growth and outreach and unify their internal branding messages.
For an earlier project with this group I also provided IA and UI strategy for the development of their sophisticated online advocacy planning & collaboration tool – the Advocacy Progress Planner.
Trout Unlimited
Research & Marketing Strategy: Combining a resource and recommendations report on Gen Y with a targeted net to collect peer and constituent input on where to go with outreach efforts to build their next generation of members for a major conservation nonprofit. We also provided them with the knowledge and skills they needed to survey their youth membership and empower youth leaders to assist with the development of engagement initiatives.
Fair Labor Association (FLA)
UX Strategy: FLA contracted me to streamline and improve their new data collection portal. Since the new system was about to become the heart of their new client self reporting system it was important that it be easy to use. I dove in and looked at every screen, at the flow and all the details. After crafting a set of recommendations based on best practices, I communicated their needs to their vendor. Visual cues and more logical labels ensured that the data they received would be of the highest integrity. Just as important, the more polished friendly interface helped them to introduce clients to the new process.
Content Strategy: Explaining their work to both lay people and industry insiders was always a challenge for FLA. When they redesigned their website they asked me to help find a way to make their process clear and easy to understand. I recommended and created a set of interactive infographics based on their brand and an analogy to show rather than tell their audiences what they do.
BC Partners for Mental Health
Research & UX Strategy: As a contractor for Communicopia, I conducted research projects involving peer assessment and recommendations on website tactics for this online health care provider. Specific areas of focus included features comparison, multilingual outreach and overall leadership in the sector.
The end product was a very well received research report and recommendations presentation to the leadership. The end result was an organization empowered to take the next steps to making their site a model of excellence.
