Background
The University of Waikato has a research project designed to encourage participation in action sports for youth who have been through trauma as a result of war or other significant social unrest. The purpose of the research was to connect action sport not-for-profit organisations around the world so that they could share their learnings and encourage each other.
Our Challenges
There were two significant challenges. The first was to create a design that appealed to both action sport participants and also to government and UN funding bodies. The second challenge was to display social issues and sports on a Google maps in a dynamic way.
Our solutions
The first challenge was solved by working closely with the research owner over a number of design iterations, proposing, listening and adjusting.
The second challenge was overcome with some clever coding by the Vo2 team, who used SilverStripe because it had the flexibility to allow this type of functionality without placing unnecessary constraints on development. In essence, we got the best of both worlds, the support and user-friendliness of a great CMS, and also the freedom to be creative.
The results
The site is now running and being used globally by action sports participant organisations and was used to support a recent TED presentation by founder Holly Thorpe. Research is being shared and target organisations strengthened, which is a great news for ASDP, those organisations and the youth they are working with.
