More of the Project C A-Team: Meet Ryan + Natalie

Meet Ryan Young!

Ryan is a senior studying photojournalism in the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University. He is a videographer producing content for United Campus Ministry. Ryan has held internships across the midwest; this summer he is taking his talents to the District Capital, working for The Washington Times. Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RMLYphoto

Hometown: Sylvania, Ohio

Favorite memory in Athens/Ohio University: 

"I have the best group of friends in the world, so every time we hang out it's a new favorite memory. I know it sounds like a cop out, but it's true!"

What is your favorite part of working on Project C? 

"Just the fact that there is a very tangible incentive for these organizations to let us in to their lives. A lot of times in the world of documenting it feels as though all you do is take, so it's nice to know that we're helping to give back with Project C."

What is your favorite restaurant in Athens? 

"Tough call...but I'm going to have to go with Ali Baba's gyro buggy."

What do you think has been the greatest invention in the last ten years? 

"Smart phones are so incredible, but I also kind of hate them at times so I'll say smart phones are simultaneously the best and worst invention of the last 10 years."

Do you have any hidden talents? 

"An encyclopedic ability to memorize song lyrics--If you could even call that a talent."

What is the most valuable advice you’ve ever received?

"There's no sense in fixating on how problems occurred, it's better instead to focus on how to fix them…or something like that."

If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose? 

"Spiderman. I've already got the photographer aspect down. So, I've been hanging outside of Clippinger Laboratories waiting for my radioactive spider... "

What’s the #1 most played song on your iTunes right now? 

"Summer Skin" by Death Cab For Cutie

What are your favorite things to do in your free time? 

"Hang out with friends, golf with friends, make music with friends, go to the beach with friends, go to concerts with friends."

Meet Natalie Schultz!

Natalie is a senior at Ohio University studying Interactive Multimedia. She contributes her time and talents to Project C by working as lead designer for the Rural Action: Watershed Restoration content. When she's not working on Project C, Natalie works as the graphics intern at the WOUB Center for Public Media and is a member of the Ohio University Multimedia Society. 

Hometown: Dayton, OH

Favorite memory in Athens/Ohio University: 

"When everything was new. I can't think of anything better than being a freshman here at OU. I wanted to get out and see everything Athens had to offer. It's this magical place that I still can't seem to get enough of; It's beautiful here."

What is your favorite part about working on Project C?

"I really enjoy the people. These people are so passionate about this project and how they can use their talents to help others. It has been very cool to be involved with the growth of Project C that has occurred over the past year. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to work with and be a part of such a fantastic project and group of individuals."

Where is your favorite place to spend an afternoon in Athens? 

"Strouds Run State Park is one of my favorite spots around here, getting out on the lake whilst in a canoe is preferred. My eyes can only take so much pixelated light, I need the real thing."

What is your favorite restaurant in Athens?

"This is tough, but since I'm especially partial to any kind of pizza, I'm going to have to say Jackie O's. Love that spent grain goodness."

Do you have any hidden talents?

"I can play songs on the piano by ear. I don't do it often and I haven't really played in front of many people."

If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?

"E.T., not only do I absolutely love this movie, but I would give anything to fly around in a bike basket with Elliott and his cronies. That, and he ends up consuming quite a few M&M's."

What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

"Breakfast foods for sure. I have recently been on a cottage cheese pancake kick. It's my mom's recipe and they sound gross, but they put regular pancakes to shame. I usually don't tell people what they are before they try them."

Three words that describe you best:

Carefree. Goofy. Funky Fresh.

New Features on the 2012 Project C website

Developing for the Future

A form that allows us to add a new organization to the site

The Project C web team has been working hard to improve the user experience and flow on the site as you read last week, but that is not all we are focused on this year. Our biggest stress on our team is to prepare for the future.

The website development team is taking this to heart as we begin to integrate the site into a content management system (or CMS) called Drupal. This framework will allow for us to easily publish new content each year with simple forms rather than developing each page individually. With the site fully integrated into a CMS, future teams will be able to focus their efforts on content production, fundraising, and marketing.

Everyone gets two votes!

Our log in and registration buttons in the corner of our site

One of the biggest changes to our website this year will be the change in our voting system. Last year we limited each IP address that visited the site to only two votes. In simple terms, this meant each household only had two votes. We realize that this severely limited the ability for everyone in the community to be able to vote.

The vote button on the project pages of the site

Our solution to this is to give each email two votes per day. All we simply ask is to register on our site and create a password to be able to login and vote each day. We promise to send out a maximum of two emails a year to remind you to either nominate or vote for the projects (no spam).

A graph that will show how many shares each project has

Tools for the Organizations

This year we wanted to give the organizations more feedback about how much support their stories are receiving during the week of voting. We are going to be providing graphs and information graphics that helps to show the sharing activity on the site.

The next 4 weeks will be nothing less than a challenge to finish the site on time, but as I always say, “Where there is faith and passion, there is hope.” And let me reassure you, I have never seen more faith or passion in a team as this one.

Structuring a User-Centered Website

The User Experience [UX] design team has been organizing various methods of user testing, specifically targeting more efficient ways of communicating content to our audience. Our strategy began with the user test, which involved having several volunteers tour through our 2011 site. From their feedback, as a team, we were able to map out pros and cons and make changes coming to the 2012 site, accordingly.

What Users Liked and Disliked About Our 2011 Site

Pros of the site included the overall design; its colors and pictures appealed to all of our test users. One thing we were surprised to learn is that many of the users preferred the footer to the main navigation. As far as cons go, many of the users stressed that the site needed better organization and clarification to understand the meaning and purpose behind the website. We also discovered that our language wasn’t well written, making it difficult for users to understand our links.

With this valuable user feedback, the UX team went straight to work on concept maps, site maps, user flow diagrams and detailed wireframes of each page to prepare the creation of a new, more user friendly website for Project C!

The development and UX teams working. Alisa Kessler, pictured far left, Jess Buse, center right, and Steph Rumph, far right.

According to our user feedback, we mapped out a user flow diagram to better understand the process our users experience when navigating through the site. Our goal was to create an easy, organized, and direct user flow with multiple options to reach your destination on the site.

Priorities for User Experience

Presenting the featured organizations was our main concern, followed by stressing the option to learn about them and provide the opportunity to vote, or learning how to get involved with that organization. We’ve also established the idea to share the stories of these organizations by focusing on social networking and bringing more traffic to the website to educate more individuals.

To wrap up the initial UX phase, we worked on several wireframe drafts. After our own team members presented their sketches and ideas, we began sketching out the overall idea on whiteboard with the design team.

From this first wireframe, the UX team built the first Photoshop wireframe, which was tweaked and edited a dozen times. In class, the entire team critiqued each wireframe draft for further improvement. At this point, the UX team is finalizing wireframes in-between design critiques to figure out what layouts work best on each page to prepare for the visual design and development phase!

We’re so excited to launch the 2012 Project C site, sharing our work with all of you! Your feedback is crucial and highly valued; if you would like to participate in our second round of user testing please email annette@clickingcreateschange.com.

Alisa Kessler // Steph Rumph // Jess Buse

User Experience Team | Project C