ACT Alliance is composed of more than 100 organisations working in long-term development and humanitarian assistance. It brings together the efforts, resources, people and organisations who have been working together as ACT International and ACT Development. We were commissioned in Autumn 2009 to plan and design a new web presence to support the launch of the organisation in early 2010.
Members of the ACT alliance work together for positive and sustainable change in the lives of impoverished, marginalized and vulnerable women, men, girls and boys through coordinated and effective humanitarian, development and advocacy work. ACT works in 125 countries, employs around 30,000 staff and volunteers and mobilises approximately $1.5 billion each year.
We began the project with an extensive requirements gathering exercise to understand the needs of the various target audiences and the strategic objectives of the organisation. From this, we began our planning to develop an information architecture that would deliver the required content to the different user types and would be flexible enough to evolve and develop over time as the organisation establishes itself and the demand on content grows.
Two main themes became the focus of the user interface design:
- Showcasing the breadth of work undertaken by ACT members around the world
- Delivering appropriate content to the members themselves (both public and members' only)
The visual design process took the new branding and developed a strong, image-led visual identity, that emphasises approachability, involvement, openness, trust and honesty. Visual storytelling through the use of imagery and video is key, as is the approach to content classification to allow key information to be found by multiple routes in to the depths of the site.
Our XHTML/CSS/JS templates were then implemented on to the Plone CMS by Fry-IT and both agencies remain actively involved with ACT to help the organisation develop its online communication platform as awareness grows.
Sean Hawkey - Communications Officer9web listened carefully and showed an insightful understanding of ACT Alliance's needs. They have successful recent work in the same sector and their references consist of unreserved recommendations and praise, particularly for user-focused design and testing. We are glad to have a switched-on team that is interested in making our work a success.
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