The site makes good use of large background imagery, which is pulled through from the collective’s Flickr account. The guys were taking pictures throughout the event and uploading them as the exhibition was unfolding so the site was constantly changing and reflecting the status of the event. It was also built to adapt to mobile devices for those checking the site from the exhibition itself.

Crim are a bunch of extremely talented guys, founded by a mate of mine. So do check out their Vimeo, and keep an eye out for future developments on the website!

Art in Yorkshire – supported by Tate is a partnership between: Axis (commissioner and content developer), fuse8 (designer and developer) and York Museums Trust (lead museum for the Art in Yorkshire consortium). Leeds Met Gallery contributed to the initial concept through The Culture Company’s Artimelt Academy. The app is funded by Arts Council England and MLA Renaissance Yorkshire.

It’s been an exciting project to work on, and has led to the development of a fantastic framework that can be used for future projects. You can read more in my interview about the app on The Culture Vulture or by viewing the case study on the fuse8 website.

During, the development process we also took a few of the team down to Yorkshire Sculpture Park to take in the surroundings and to brainstorm ideas about how mobile can be used in such environments. It was a very valuable exercise, that led to some great all-round thinking for future projects. Check out a little video we put together:

The interview came about after I was approached by The Migraine Trust, a client of ours, about being a media volunteer.

My situation, technically classified as ‘medication overuse headaches’, is becoming an ever increasing problem for others and it feels very good to be able to share my story with the world (or at least with the people that read the Mail).

Check it out anyway…you wil learn about how my life was turned upside down for several years. Also, check out my cool migraine pose! (not sure why the Mail used a shit stock image!)

It’s fair to say it’s a great app, and a great way to catch up with some telly, but i was a little disappointed in the amount of advancements made from the existing web version. Fingers crossed the updated versions live up to its potential!

You can read my full review on the  Drum website.

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Small charities such as The Migraine Trust are facing extremely difficult times. Survival is all about gaining new supporters and creating engaging content that puts the charity, and it’s message, in front of people on a regular basis.

The Migraine Trust came to fuse8 with a set budget which they had raised through a medical grant. We also added to the budget in the form of a charitable donation, cos we’re nice like that. Still, the aim of the project was to redesign a flawed website.

Now, a website providing information about migraines is only going to be able to go so far in persuading visitors to return time and time again, I should know (I’ve been suffering with migraines for over 8 years), so we started to think of ways to increase engagement and spread the word.

A two-pronged solution

We broke this down into two completely separate proposals, which sat alongside the redesign of the website. As an integrated agency fuse8 are always looking to generate ideas that are delivered through different mediums, and as the creative lead on the project I identified the importance early on to create both a tactile ‘offline’ experience and an online tool that would create a lasting experience for those involved.

The tool was an online Migraine Diary (diary.migrainetrust.org). The first thing I was ever told by a doctor when I started to get migraines was to keep a diary, to list symptoms and habits that might help identify a trigger. Me and Martin (@mspownall), our Information Architect, worked closely to research existing tools, of which there was only really 1…and a bad one at that! We then went onto work together on the IA, creating something that was enjoyable to use, as well as medically valid. The end goal was for the user to have all the information they needed to take to the doctor (as a print out) and get relevant advice based on their data.

The diary has been a huge success for the client. Signs up have exceeded all their expectations, and more importantly have ensured that sufferers are coming back to The Migraine Trust time and time again to use a valuable tool.

Let’s get physical

The second proposal was to create something physical, that would help sufferers share their experience with others.

Some people struggle to explain how migraines affect their life, and often these people don’t have supportive partners or family members to open up to. This got me thinking, and I proposed to the client the idea of creating a ‘travelling diary’ campaign, during which they would send out physical diaries to people interested in taking part. These people would write a 1-2 page diary entry explaining their situation and send it back to The Migraine Trust. The website launch acted as an initial driver to gain interest, collating the data of people willing to participate, and the client actually had to employ someone on a part-time volunteer basis to manage the day to day management of sending out diaries.

Once the diary entries have been sent back, the volunteer scans them in and uploads them to the client’s Flickr account, with the images then being shared via facebook and twitter. One of the benefits of the campaign is the ability for the client to send out additional information with the diary, encouraging people taking part to donate or become a regular supporter.

However, the end goal was to create something that people could invest their time in, knowing that ultimately they are helping others feel like they are not alone in their suffering.

A job well done…

The aspect of the project I am most proud of was our determination to do something that really made a difference. It would have been easy for the agency to simply redo the website, but I like to think we made the most of their budget, creating something that has brought the charity closer to it’s supporters and helped spread their message to a wider audience.

www.migrainetrust.org

The Migraine Trust came to fuse8 after being impressed by the work that we had done on the Meningitis Research Foundation website, which I had also been involved in. The ultimate aim of the project was to improve the user experience on the site, re-organise the navigation and improve both search rankings and donations.

In many ways it was a typical project for me, but being able to identify with the eventual end-users helped massively. I could see straight away that the previous website (link courtesy of The Way Back Machine) was poorly structured, making it extremely hard to find valuable information. There’s nothing more frustrating when you’re researching an illness as not being able to find relevant information, and a well structured navigation is essential. I had vague memories of looking at the site when I first started getting migraines, and can only think that the experience put me off going back for any more information.

I worked closely with Martin Pownall (@mspownall), our Information Architect, on the wireframes and thinking behind the UX and SEO requirements. Being involved heavily from the start also enabled  us both to shape the creative approach, not only to the website, but for the diary application and travelling diary campaign that were worked on alongside it (Ed. another blog post coming soon about these!).

The Design Approach

Medical charity websites aren’t exactly known for adventurous designs, but I wanted to create something that, as well as helping people find relevant information, turned out to be a memorable user experience.

A lot of thought and consideration was put into the design, to ensure that the necessary elements stood out. I wanted to create something that didn’t just end up as some nicely designed templates to build into our CMS, the aim was to add detail into interface elements (such as events listings and migraine fact sheets), that would ensure that the site didn’t feel too ‘samey’ as a user browses through different pages and sections. Of course, the site is managed by the client, so it’s impossible to have total control over layout, but the creation of supporting graphics that can be placed within different regions of the page really helps with this.

I also added a ‘dimmer switch‘ which effectively acts as a style-sheet switcher, providing users with an alternative, dimmed down, version of the website. Obviously, it’s rather unlikely that anyone suffering a migraine is going to be browsing the internet during their attack, but a lot of sufferers don’t like browsing sites with high colour contrast as the glare has an impact on their condition.

The site was built using several CSS3 techniques, which was something new to fuse8 at the time. It was interesting being involved in the briefing process to our developers over in Russia, and also refreshing to work with a client who understood that designs don’t need to be exactly the same in every browser.

Feedback

The website has received a hugely positive response from it’s users. Many sufferers have actually taken the time to write to the client to praise the work that has been done, which is extremely pleasing for myself and all involved in the project at fuse8. It’s makes me feel warm inside to have worked on a project which has directly impacted the lives of people like myself, and will hopefully continue to do so. It certainly made a massive difference being able to directly relate to the end-users, and I’m positive that my experiences have led to us creating a site that everyone involved can be proud of.

The video above was put together on the evening I got back from footage I’d filmed on my iPhone using the 8mm app. It was edited using iMovie on the iPhone, and uploaded to YouTube all in around 20 minutes. The wonders of modern technology!

The lure of a free bar (excluding spirits!) and the .net branded burger van was enough to keep me happy, but there was more. Jack Whitehall, a comedian who I’ve never found all that funny on the telly, was compere for the night, and I have to hold my hands up, he was brilliant. He even managed to make a joke about Lycos! Now there’s a man who knows his audience. The venue was full of web geeks, but all in all it was a chilled out atmosphere enhanced by Whitehall’s humour, the free photobooth outside, and the monitors displaying live tweets about the event. Jack was inevitably heckled using the #netawards hashtag…this world we live in *tut*.

The awards themselves went by quite quickly, with Zeldman taking away 3 awful shiny black cubes (I bet he ain’t got those on his mantelpiece), but the winner in my eyes was Ravelry, a community of people who love knitting and crochet, which took home the award for best online community, beating Twitter and Facebook! Brilliant.

The whole thing ended a bit early at 12:30am, but I suppose it was a school night. Hopefully it will be a Friday next year, and that I’ll get another invite!

For those who are unaware, Dribbble is a social hub for designers (mostly web folk) to showcase small screenshots of their latest work, in order to gain feedback from the community. I’ve been using it since early June and just wanted to share my thoughts.

Now, I’d heard great things about Dribbble before i was ‘drafted’ in by a friend. It seemed to be the place where all the ‘top’ web designers hung out, you know the same one who are topping the bill at the ridiculously expensive conferences, so it naturally got a lot of attention and created a desire amongst the rest of the design community to get involved.

The site itself was the brainchild of Dan Cederholm, and rather than being somewhere exclusive and aloof it had a nice way of getting others involved whilst making sure that the quality would remain. It manages to put the responsibility for quality on the shoulders of its users. It does this by only giving a small amount of opportunities to invite others, and being very clear as to your responsibility for ensuring the work displayed remains decent.

Don’t get me wrong, people are always going to invite ‘friends’ who might not be great designers, so there is a bit of poor quality work on there, but the way the site is structured ensures you can personalise your experience by ‘following’ only the best designers. In that way, it’s very like Twitter…you can seperate the wheat from the chaff.

The most interesting aspect of the site is the community. There have always been ways of showing work off online, and the standard portfolio is still the best way to do that. However, being able to get instant feedback from friends and respected peers on small design decisions is incredibly valuable. The site only allows you to upload small screenshots (400px x 300px) so it really is only a glimpse of the work, but it’s enough for people to give opinion on a loose concept for a icon, type choice or navigation design for example. The basic values of communities also still exist, so you get more out of it the more you give into it. Commenting on work is a valuable way of being seen by others.

It’s also very useful when looking for inspiration. Each upload is ‘tagged’ so it’s very easy to search for specific items. One I have found quite useful is ‘CSS3′, which often gives good insight into the latest designs being done using the latest coding techniques. My only real gripe is that I’m starting to see a lot of similarities between people’s work. The site gives a really good reflection of the latest web design trends (the good and the bad), but there’s only so many glossy buttons and social media icons I can stomach!

It’s going to be very interesting to see how dribbble develops. They’ve recently released their API, which has seen a whole host of sites being created. A good place for keeping on top of this is Rebbbounds, which is a tumblr blog showcasing the latest dribbble mashups! One worth checking out is Scorebbboard, which using dribbble shots to create a 2 player game.

With regards to its users, i’ll be curious to see if it starts to attract a wider variety of designers, becoming a bit more like Behance perhaps. What I’m hoping for however is that it plays to its strengths, focuses on its community and remains a fun place to share ideas.

P.S. If you want to be ‘drafted’, leave a comment on this post with a link to some work. If anyone does I’ll pick out the best few and make sure you are next on my invite list!

Direct now makes it incredibly easy to let users upload their own videos (or photos) on your own website. YouTube then provides an administrative tool for you to approve/reject anything that has been uploaded, with approved uploads being added automatically onto your YouTube channel. Obviously, these can also be displayed straight onto your website, also allowing users to rate and comment directly on your site.

It’s absolutely perfect for news organisations looking for people to add their own reportings, which is where YouTube seem to have pitched it (see video below)

However, I see it also being incredibly useful for creating online video/photo competitions. I recently worked on a project where we needed to create a modelling contest online, and having Direct available to us would have saved a lot of development and moderation time.

It’s certainly another powerful add-on to the API that I can see taking off, and something that I’ll be keeping a close eye on to see how others are making the most of it’s functionality.