The Washington University Office of Sustainability was ready to go deeper with students and faculty. A large-scale touchscreen now delightfully engages audiences in a big way.
Objective
For the past several years, the Washington University Office of Sustainability has been leading the charge on the university's sustainable operations, programs and initiatives. With lots of data to share and with university students and faculty alike professing a desire to learn about how to truly make an impact, the team was looking for a way to engage more meaningfully with their audiences.
Strategy
By designing and developing a large-scale touchscreen located in the main campus library we helped the Sustainability team raise awareness and delight their users at the same time. Touchscreen visitors make choices as they are served content, discovering, learning and interacting with data and concepts in a personal and memorable way.
Accessible Interactions
Designing and developing for physical interaction with the screen brought its own challenges. There were clear parameters, like designing for the exact screen dimensions without concern for browsers and responsiveness, that brought a certain freedom. However, ensuring that people of all sizes and mobility could access and interact with the navigation and content required a different kind of accessibility approach.
Extending the Brand
Washington University’s brand is strong, clear and recognizable. Applying it to the Sustainability touchscreen gave us an opportunity to explore its lighter side, building on complementary colors and evolving the brand’s illustration and iconography with animations.
We All Win
Unlike many educational websites, the Sustainability Touchscreen has a measurable goal of improving users’ knowledge. We created a quiz that gives users real-time feedback on their answers, and educates them about the most impactful sustainability practices that they, as individuals, can undertake.
““The Almanac team worked with a broad internal stakeholder group to develop a simple architecture and beautiful design that showcases our work, initiatives, and community partnerships in a single user-friendly interface. ”
Phil Valko, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability
