Volunteer Alliance

Dedicated Individuals

What a pleasure to work with a passionate bunch of individuals. It's Volunteer Alliance (VA) I'm talking about, poised to launch their site and spread volunteer bravado across the globe. It's projects like this that re-install my vigor for the internet and its capabilities for good. This is a sizable project run mainly by people who aren't, by vocation, internet specialists. It's not that they aren't savvy, it's just that this isn't what they get up to on their 9 to 5. But the realize that there is a need and the internet can provide the fix. VA is an organization dedicated to connecting volunteers to organizations around the globe. Surprisingly you normally pay a fee for this privilege of giving your time, a fee paid to organizations that simply connect the volunteer to the place in need. The good folks at VA realized that this was an activity that machines should be preforming for us, free of charge. After all what are machines for if not to do our bidding? So the VA folks set out to create VolunteerAlliance.com and met me through an internet forum. I was more than happy to help with their sizable project and set about with a plan.

Stages of the project

A project with this much information needs a well laid out plan to keep a consistent and functional UX. That starts with a site map to identify all the goals and flow of the information in the site.

For a site this size I insist on wireframes. This focuses attention on the Information Architecture and the UX before people get caught up in the pretty colors and fonts.

After we get the underlying structured settled it's time to come up with a visual identity that expresses the values and goals of the organization. This can take a couple of revisions and I think it's neat to see some early comps from before the identity was settled. Be sure to check out the multi-color identity of Volunteer Alliance. This is going to have applications in merchandise and create a dynamic visual experience for users across the globe.

Keep your head up for the v1.0 of the site, live as soon as I build the front end ;)