Act for Healthy Rivers is LIVE!

After 8+ months of conceptualizing the whats, whys, whos, and hows, we've finally launched Act for Healthy Rivers (www.healthyrivers.org). The first site, phase I, is designed to speak to river groups, or anyone working (and possibly profiting, ie rafting or guiding services) on the water.

Phase II, which is scheduled to launch early this summer, is geared to *Joe Public*. Not too many details on this site, but it will be short, sweet, and subversive (keep your fingers crossed with the latter).

Until then, take a spin on Act for Healthy Rivers. It was just launched the other day, so it's still in beta mode...if you have suggestions, ideas, or comments, now is the time to share 'em.

Act for Healthy Rivers nears completion

We're soooo close to wrapping up this site and launching Act for Healthy Rivers, a project that has been in the making since last July. This has not been an easy task - small niche campaigns never are - but overall I think we're in a good place.

Plus, the *slog* will be reinforced/cross-promoted nicely on our national river blog. More to come, but here are a few screenshots.

Front page

Slog (sewage + blog = slog) page

Our coalition page

Our fight page

AHR front page design & strategy back on track

We knew developing a strategy for Act for Healthy Rivers would be a challenge. We knew conceptualizing the bits and pieces would be time consuming, if not frustrating. And we knew that at some point, all of us would have different ideas of what it should look like. Basically, we were right on all levels.

But I think that's a fairly typical design process too. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Fortunately, after taking a slight nose dive the other week, we've bounced back - it feels good to have direction, clarity once again. After a month of designs, I think we're in a good place to begin the build out.

We received the latest design Friday afternoon and as with the others it looked great, but more importantly, it struck a nerve. We loved the ghostbuster-like sewage pipe. The header image and the X-sewage pipe appeared to complement each other, also pop at first glance. Very cool.

My only concern with the above design - not enough to hold us back from building it out - is that the blog and map appeared to be two separate pages joined together. So, I proposed a hybrid (rough translation below) to our partners over the weekend.


Hopefully (you be the judge), our above efforts rest on three guiding principles:

1. The site needs to accurately state the issue.
   
   
2. The site needs to be a source of regular information on the issue and the progress of the legislation. (thus the sewage + blog = slog)
   
   
3. The site needs to capture River Groups that are supporting this initiative, i.e. getting in the act.

AHR's latest design misses the mark

The latest design for Act for Healthy Rivers took a downward turn. After the intervention last Thursday, we thought we were on the right track. But unfortunately not.

Basically, it was too much map, not enough of sewage + blog = slog. We want river groups to enlist, but the engine of the site will be the slog content which we will use to drive more folks to the site.

Though the newest design reflects a bit of miscommunication, we got ourselves on track this afternoon with a telephone call. Never underestimate the power of a call in times of frustration.

We're counting on the next round for that solid footing for moving forward. Act for Healthy Rivers' design process has seen a few different ups and downs, but I'm still confident we will end up with a great site - in fact, two great sites (Joe public site is still in the mix).

Full steam ahead: new AHR front page developments

I've been suffering from project fatigue. Added time, combined with many different front page designs, has created project fatigue. It's a feeling rooted in the weeds of a project that bounces back and forth from clarity and confusion. And over time the line between the two simply dissolved.

The last round was safe, probably a little too safe, but most importantly it didn't beckon action as we had hoped. We needed direction with this project, fast. The last seven mock-up (yes, count them!) has run the gamut and we've payed the price. I got the feeling that it was mutual and our partners wanted to meet to discuss strategy.

What's the one thing we want river groups to do? So I was asked. My response, join the campaign and get mapped. That's what we want; we want river groups to be a part of the fight to combat sewage in our rivers. The result is the NEW mock-up of the front page below.


Basically, we needed to get back to the basics and define what we wanted. This is incredibly important for moving on. Fortunately, in response to previous discussions, our partners jumped in and laid out the three main goals for moving forward -

1. The site needs to accurately state the issue. (since this site's audience is river groups we can be technical)
2. The site needs to be a source of regular information on the issue and the progress of the legislation. (thus the blog)
3. The site needs to capture River Groups that are supporting this initiative.

"Design goals should be focused on keeping it clean, non-text heavy, and unique." I was told. And completely agree. Though we have a couple of tweaks (wouldn't be the same without, right?), I think we can finally move forward with direction. Thanks fellas.

AHR front page mock-up: still safe

We took the feedback from our last discussion and turned it over to our partners who came back with exactly what we asked for - see below. There were slight tweaks, but overall it looked pretty good - though possibly a little dark (our suggestion). However, it does have the basic elements we're shooting for: simple navigation, pleasing to the eye, and a collaborative feel.

Most recent

Previous

All of this is good, and it looks great, but in the end it still has SAFE all over it. Though the second site, 'Joe Public', will be subversive and fun for a larger audience, we hope the river group site is a little more inspiring. The Slog (Sewage + Blog) will be cool, but is that enough for folks to join the campaign? It might bring them back (and hopefully so), but I'm not sure if it's the reason why river groups would join the campaign.

We've gone through three drafts of the front page mock-up (not including the two extra ones that were first built) and there has to be a point when we pull the plug and move forward in the name of time, associated costs, and sanity.

Our partners were given a pretty tall order (and have responded above and beyond), and it's been since October since we began conceptualizing what Act for Healthy Rivers will look like, but there comes a time when we need to move forward for the sake of moving forward. We want to continually advance the ball; however, with every step forward over the last two rounds, we seem to get a little crossed up and end up taking two back. We need clarification for our partners.

One last crack at it and all systems will have to be a go.

3rd go at AHR's front page design, not the last

This week has been all about Act for Healthy Rivers. It's a good thing since I've been in a bit if a holding pattern with the national redesign. Our partners tasked with the design side of things have been busy at work with the homepage mock-up following the series of wireframe developments.

The added time this week has allowed us to focus our attention on Act for Healthy Rivers' design elements. Below: the current mock-up is the most recent effort to date and significantly different than the last. And though both designs are in the family, the two below are products of an earlier round. And I suspect the next to be different too - it's anyone's game now.

Current mock-up

Previous mock-up

After running this by members of our executive team and an impromptu focus group, the loudest feedback was that the current mock-up didn't pop. In fact, our partners pretty much summed it up best with the latest effort -

It seems like we are taking a safer approach here when we could be pushing the envelope and focusing on a real campaign brand. As we have said the site can easily be redesigned. But does your constituency really want to see another pretty river header and another river group site, or do they want to see a more edgy site that emphasizes the problems that have necessitated this new legislation?

We're not really going for an edgy look with the 'river group' site, but we do want the appearance to be engaging, clear, and okay, a little on the edge. This process has gone around the horn and I'm confused with what we want to achieve again. Our team may need a regroup and clear things up before we proceed.

AHR's front page takes on another look

We're in a good place. Though a different approach to the last mock-up (and original designs), we're moving in the right direction.

There are a lot of great aspects to this design and one that our partners put a rush on so that we can put it in front of our executive team, internal focus group, and eventually the campaign's steering committee before we move forward with the build out.

The call out to the river groups is key for us in the Join Us section to the right of the header image as they are our primary audience. And the bling underneath is pretty cool too - we like the collaborative emphasis.

The Join Us section is the homepage ask; we want groups to click on this section and get in the act. The basic premise behind the site is that if you're a river group working on river-related issues, we'd like for this site to be the platform for information (as well as content to share with your constituency) and action behind 'Right-to-Know' legislation.

Though the text in various sections is a little unbalanced, the basic layout is heading in the right direction. In the short time we've had our hands on this design this afternoon, the feedback that rose to the top of conversation was that it was a little bland - nothing popped at the first impression.

We're planning on taking one more look tomorrow and get back to our partners by the afternoon, but I wonder how much 'pop' there should be when we're going for substance, greater content over flash - that kind of thing. We'll have to find the middle road in order to move forward, but in the mean time take a look at the slog post on the bill icon - fun stuff that made me laugh when I first saw it.

AHR gut check for front page design

The clarity from last meeting was quickly forgotten as we grappled with design elements, messaging, and structure. We didn't necessarily take a step backwards, but we did slosh about in the weeds. The deeper we went, the more we needed to revisit our goals.

And that's what we attempted to do, back off for a few minutes and get a fresh look at the front page, direction of site/campaign.

After a little more consideration, the initial sizzle we felt with the rain theme backdrop and header image started to wane. Rain is not the sole contributor to sewage in our rivers and offering that as the lead in to the site was potentially distracting to the overall effort of the site to engage and activate river groups around 'Right to Know' legislation. So our thinking went.

A little more detail about our likes/dislikes of existing front page mock-up:

Images: We're shooting for the lead image to reflect the positive side of rivers and communities, e.g. recreation, water source, healthy ecosystems. The second, smaller image underneath, we’re going for an ugly sewer shot that contrasts the lead image. The tag line: When the rivers flow with sewage.

Backdrop: We’ve given this a lot of thought following the suggestion regarding the use of a river image at top. With the current backdrop, a river image is out of place. And since the rain is not the sole contributor to sewage, we’re planning on deleting the rain backdrop.

Navigation: We like it at the top as well as the idea of a highlighted section to the right (currently, River Group Supporters). This is an attention getter and one we can utilize as a call out to join. Specifically, we're thinking of bringing the box to the top and doing away with the map and state drop down.

Bottom half of front page: The two posts on the homepage will also be the two most recent posts. On the right, another section/box about ‘The Legislation’ will be pretty key for us to keep our eyes on the prize.

I suspect our next design to look drastically different, but we'll be one step closer.

AHR navigation scheme determined

With one redesign complete, the next couple of months will be pretty intense with the launching of Act for Healthy Rivers (next few weeks, cross your fingers) and the launching of the redesigned, rebranded, and reworded national site in April. This past week has definitely felt like the calm before the storm. The two remaining sites couldn't be more different in design, scope, and audience.

AHR is being built by a small firm in washington, DC, who develops sites using the open source platform, Drupal. The look and feel of our national site is being designed by a New York firm who will turn over the creative assets to the second New York firm who will then attach the code to the pretty pictures and make sure everything works within our closed content management system provider, Convio.

Yes, the moving parts make me nervous. Yes, the closed system has me on the edge (unforeseen extra costs). And yes, the amount of cooks in the kitchen does make me a little jumpy. (I think that is one reason I feel the need to document every move)

However, over the next couple of weeks, it will be all AHR. More than a week ago we received the mock-ups. Early this week we responded with our desired design features. Then, after undergoing an internal review of our content needs and creative assets, we plotted the navigation.

Slog | Policy Watch | Act Now | River Groups | Contact

A preliminary site map is outline below:

Slog

* Overall, like the structure of HRC’s news page

Policy Watch

Index page – home
Learn about sewage
Learn about the legislation

Act Now

Index page – home
Five things you can do now
Join Act for Healthy Rivers (reg page for groups, similar to NRCW)
Slog your story (contact page)
Spread the word (tell-a-friend function, transparent)
Link to the campaign (similar to kick the oil habit)
Subscribe (slog updates/RSS feed (blog and comments)

River Groups

Index page – home
Dynamic Google map that displays the groups who’ve ‘Acted’ (similar to NRCW)
Strong call to register river groups

Contact

Index page – home
Primary contact for campaign and ‘slog your story’ landing page, AR plug too
About us
History of Campaign
Steering Committee
Join Act for Healthy Rivers

AHR mock-ups reviewed, desired design elements explored

The Act for Healthy Rivers team met again last Friday to discuss the mock-ups. We had a great meeting and it was the first time all of us have sat down and accomplished what we set out to do over the typically short time together (finished early in fact!).

This was not because we had a hard time agreeing in previous meetings, but up until now the project was still too ambiguous. This meeting had legs from the beginning as we finally had something to wrap our heads around. Instead of proposing 'what it could be', we were finally getting a glimpse of 'what it will be'.

From my first day at American Rivers, we've been talking about this project, fighting for its funding, and making our case internally why it was important. That was eight months ago and even I came in the 5th round, so this project has been bubbling for well over a year.

This past July we decided to put this project to paper and write a Request for Proposal (RFP). After hallway chats, meeting requests, and email galore, we laid out what we wanted (applications and all) and tossed it to 10 different firms. And we got 10 different proposals. It was everything from a 6-line email to a binded 40 page report (ouch!). The proposed project budget was also all over the place. We mulled over each proposal, responded to follow up questions, and further attempted to identify what Act for Healthy Rivers meant to the organization, steering committee, and prospective river groups who join the campaign.

The funny thing is that where we are now is nowhere close to what we envisioned in the RFP. However, going through this process helped us to 1) identify our developer/firm for the national site, 2) further grasp the project goals, 3) find a gritty, campaign proven firm developing exclusively on Drupal.

Since basically October, we've had multiple meetings with our design team that have gone on many tangents (we are talking about sewage, so all fun), and all of it has lead us to where we are now, project mock-ups for our 'river group' site.

Our meeting on Friday touched on the following:

Mock-up 2 was the preferred design template, but there were elements of the other two (here and here) that were equally as attractive for AHR’s look, feel, and navigation.

Our discussion revealed the overall desired design features for moving forward:

• Greater balance between slog and policy (if not weighted slightly more to policy focus)
  
• Horizontal navigation
  
• Prominent supporter map, a play for river groups to join
  
• Strong call to arms intro to campaign, our “manifesto”
  
• AHR logo design and colors that pop
  
• Participatory/collaborative feel, 'slog your story'
  
• Simple navigation
  
• Drop-down support locator (by state)
  
• Full/fat footer to reinforce message/navigation
  
• No distinction between guest and main blogger
  
• Slog email capability

Three mock-ups to review for Act for Healthy Rivers

It's been a while since there's been work to discuss, but we're making good progress with Act for Healthy Rivers' transformation from The Citizens' Agenda for Rivers. After what feels like months of strategy (and we needed every bit of it), we have three mock-ups to review and discuss as a team before providing our partners with feedback for moving forward with the build out.

Act for Healthy Rivers has great potential to speak to river groups, organize organizations around right to know legislation (sewage in our rivers), and energize the river constituency to act for healthy rivers.

With this in mind, we're looking at a two-prong attack with the first website to focus on river groups, our primary audience, and then a second website this spring targeting Joe public. It is really important for us that our river group website is the product of the community, i.e. steering committee and river groups at large. One way we hope to address this is through a sewage log or more appropriately, slog.

For the last month, our team has been slogging so that we can launch with a dozen preloaded posts. This will be pretty cool and hopefully a good example of us igniting a larger, public conversation (and second website) around right to know legislation. More to come with the Joe public, but the mockups are below. What design stands out for you?

We're meeting on Friday to discuss with the team, so hopefully, by the end of the week, we'll be one step closer to our look, feel, and general direction of Act for Healthy Rivers' new website.

Mock-up 1

Mock-up 2

Mock-up 3

Act for Healthy Rivers' course is set - so we hope

Though nothing is finalized, it feels like we're at least one step closer to choosing the direction of the HealthyRivers.org. (btw, healthyrivers.org = Act for Healthy Rivers)

No longer will groups pledge their support of 30+ things when they endorse Citizens Agenda for Rivers—slightly ambitious, wouldn’t you say? This was one of the earlier efforts to mobilize the river movement. All in all successful on many levels from what I understand, but the biggest take away for us was River Lobby Day.

Since then, the challenge for us has been how do we build on this momentum around one single issue, sewage in our rivers. When we sent the Request for Proposal out to 10+ firms in July 2006, we had in mind a website with password protected corners to serve river groups. As a resource to these river groups, we wanted to provide a platform for groups to share their experiences, engage one another, and most importantly, take action.

We met with Development Seed again last Friday to follow up on a conversation that I had with them earlier in the week. We went through a second round (review our first meeting) of what we wanted and what we thought we wanted from a site, only in the end to receive a little tough love—which we needed.

The fundamental challenge for us was balancing the altruistic nature of our intentions, river groups uniting to combat shit in our rivers, with the reality that most of Joe public isn't aware of the issue.

I searched Google News for ‘sewage spills’ and there were over 400 articles. October 26th's headline: “More than 2.7 million gallons of untreated sewage leaked or spilled from pipes in the Cape Fear region in the past year. Most of it ran into our creeks and rivers.” Yuk.

Anyhow, in attempt to address the need of creating buzz with a site that provides a lot of useful information, we're exploring two COMPLETELY different websites (because they are different audiences) for this particular campaign.

One being the subversive, if not childish, attempt at making this effort go viral, and two, providing the sound background information needed to justify the seriousness of our overall effort to organize river groups and provide useful information for groups to take back to their constituents.

But when this is all said and done, how childish can we be? Um, unsure at this point until we pitch the idea to senior staff. And have the Steering Committee get on board. Cross your fingers.

The artist formerly known as Citizens Agenda for Rivers

Our meeting two weeks ago for Act for Healthy Rivers started with the best intentions: provide needed resources to groups on the ground on how to stop sewage from seeping in to our rivers. Pretty down right professional, if not admirable, but exciting?

Shit in our rivers is a HUGE issue, but there is not a federal law to enforce notification. When it rains (for DC it only takes an inch of rain), raw sewage flows in to our rivers because of out dated sewage systems. And when it happens, no one really knows about it.

This is not like if a tree falls, does anyone hear it? kind of thing. Sewage overflow typically stinks, not to mention it pollutes our rivers, but if you swim, fish, boat, do all the stuff you enjoy doing on a river, do you know recreating after a downpour is a bad idea?

Basically, there is no federal law that requires notification of sewage overflow. Hence our effort to reshape the campaign formerly known as the Citizens Agenda for Healthy Rivers to one that is action based—Act for Healthy Rivers.

Thinking that acting for healthy rivers meant giving the tools to local/national groups for their continued action, we drafted a 5-page request for proposal. Sent it out to 10 firms/consultants and eventually selected Development Seed to lead the online effort.

Well, during our brainstorming—the one with good intentions—session, we basically tossed up in the air that sewage ain’t sexy. Wait, hold the phone, sewage has no sizzle? Surprise. That’s when were sidetracked with the idea of sending poop to Congress. Gasp, but hmmm.

We just received our “Meeting Notes” from Development Seed who laid out the two completely different websites—two different audiences too. But we can only do one and the idea of combining these iniatives seems like we'll only weaken the overall effort. Tough call, wonky site for river groups or viral-based action?

Option 1: Build a wonky resource rich website targeting river groups

Option 2: Build an awareness raising campaign targeting the masses

We’re meeting on Friday to discuss.