Help4Teens Website Massive Hit with Young People.
With the launch of its brand new website www.Help4Teens.co.uk Connexions County Durham officially launched its impressive and comprehensive resource for young people aged 13-19 across County Durham. Designed and implemented by Newcastle based agency Indigo Multimedia, the site provides clear and helpful information on everything from jobs, training, and education to money and life.
The look and feel of the site was developed following extensive user research. Ryan Foster; Project Manager at Indigo stated the importance of involving young people in the development of the new site. "By using focus groups we were able to understand young peoples needs, likes and dislikes, they clearly communicated that they wanted to feel involved when using internet sites". As a result the site has many innovative features, a virtual library, which dynamically links to their Library Information Centre, allows users to chose a character, walk around from bookshelf to bookshelf, encouraging them to explore guidance information. The colour, font and look of the site, can be changed easily allowing it to be personalised and much of the content is signposted through quizzes and polls, all helping to give it the playful and fun feel the focus groups identified.
As well as providing an online resource, young people can access, through a number of advice channels, direct contact with their local Connextions Advisor. Craig Liddle, Information Coordinator at Connexions County Durham, who was very involved in working with the focus groups said "The new site is definitely a big hit; already it is receiving 10,000 impressions a month".
Cleverly, the system is available on a CD-ROM demonstrating the desire to communicate with young people who may not have internet access. The website and desktop applications are regularly updated with the latest developments and news from the Connexions Service.
Connexions chose Indigo for this major project as they are a leading web technology and design company specialising in user-centred design, next generation web products and services. Indigo are also working with a number of Connexions Services across the UK, including Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire & Rutland and Leicestershire and their impressive list of clients also include Adidas UK / Newcastle United FC, the NHS and Electrolux.
The company recently bagged runners-up spot in The Microsoft Award for Innovation through Technology for their innovative THINKfootball! a web-based football themed e-learning game.
In the press:
Shell LiveWIRE
"Indigo offer much more than design and programming they help us with our strategy and thinking. This can mean the difference between the success and failure of a project. So far it's 10 out of 10 for success."
Gary Nagel,
IT Manager.
