Case Study: Dog Doctors
Developing an online version of an outreach program to spread love for veterinary medicine to young students
PROJECT DATE: January — May 2024
SKILLS USED: Canva, Project Management, UX Research/Interface Design, WordPress, Elementor, Bootstrap
OVERVIEW
For the Capstone course of the New Media Certificate, I and a team of 5 other students were tasked with a semester-long project with a client to fulfill certain needs. We develop products and deliverables to ensure that their requests are met and executed in a way that is able to be carried out beyond our work with them for this class.
Dr. Paige Carmichael at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine runs a K-12 outreach program called “Dog Doctors”. She and a small team of graduate students go from school to school to foster the science connection between animals and humans, as well as getting children interested in veterinary medicine. The best part — it’s centered around dogs!
THE CHALLENGE
Because Dr. Carmichael and her team do such a great job, the demand for the Dog Doctors program is high! However, with their busy schedules, they are unable to commit to driving to all of the schools, especially outside of counties that neighbor the home base of Athens-Clarke County. In addition, a huge initiative of the team is to increase outreach into underserved and underrepresented communities, which they specifically asked for us to take into account.
THE SOLUTION
We worked with the Dog Doctors team to develop a virtual format of their in-person program. Not only would this allow for the team to go to more schools, but it also increases accessibility to marginalized communities because it is easier to reach online.
Our main goals were:
- Content Structure — what steps would we need to take to host the program online, and how can we make the process as efficient as possible?
- Branding — how can we create a look for the program that is seamless and ties back to the University of Georgia, along with other requests from the client?
- Interactive Learning — how can we make sure that the online format is engaging for young students if the team cannot provide and guide them with hands-on material?
- Content Structure
One of our biggest aids was developing a program script outline for the Dog Doctors Team to fill out. Since we were going from a fully 100%, off-the-dome style of presenting to a virtual format, we needed more clarity from the team on which parts they wanted to be through asynchronous in-person teaching (on Zoom), versus what they wanted us to create video clips for. I created a structure for them to provide their input, as well as how to designate sections for Zoom vs animated.
2. Branding
Since a core request from Dr. Carmichael was to have Dog Doctors be recognizable and easy to find, we decided to host the program on a WordPress website. In addition, we as the Capstone team all collaborated to develop a logo, colors, and font styles to establish a strong brand. We iterated through many logo designs:
- simple letter art that displays the program’s connection to dogs —
- heart emblem for the paw, with an electrocardiogram in the middle —
- a refined version of the heart emblem, with a simpler electrocardiogram for better visibility at smaller sizes —
After more consultation with the Dog Doctors team, we were requested to incorporate the word “outreach” into our logo, along with the Aesculapian staff that is associated with the veterinary medicine practice.
To ensure that the replicability was as effective for those with less technical experience than us at the NMI, I was tasked with developing a handoff document that explains how to edit and add content to the Dog Doctors website, utilize the branding kit, and resources on how to use Adobe Character Animator if the Dog Doctors team wanted to generate more informational content in the future. I designed the document and utilized copywriting skills to explain the processes step-by-step, using pictures and arrows to convey things that would be hard to understand if they weren’t seeing the screen.
3. Interactive Learning
After discussing with the client, we came to the conclusion that the Capstone team will create short introduction clips for each section of the program, as well as an introduction clip for the program overall. In addition, the in-person format also features activity packets and coloring sheets; since this was something that the team wanted to retain, we decided to incorporate that into our website as well.
The above image displays the sequencing of the program, with the sections marked off by the video topic. To allow for students to still be able to utilize hands-on activities, we have a download button that allows teachers to access a PDF version of any associated activity that the Dog Doctors team wants with that section, which can be easily printed.
RESULTS
As the project manager, developer, and designer, I wore many hats for this assignment, but I feel like my biggest contribution was my creation of agendas, task delegation and action items, scripts and outlines, and taking the time to proof-read and make necessary edits to ensure that our work was tight and high-quality. These roles also allowed for stronger communication with the Dog Doctors team as we had to work together to flesh out a version of their program that they never predicted they would need. We hope that the measures we took to host their content allows for the team to meet their ever-growing demands for visits!
For a sneak peek of what we went for with the animated clips, here is our trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_cOkzVXNZg
Click here to access our class project site for all of our deliverables, and here to access the website we created for Dog Doctors!
NEW MEDIA NARRATIVE
I have always been an “interdisciplinary” person. I obsess over the things I enjoy, but it can never be just one thing. I love public health and policy, but am also very passionate about creative arts and linguistics. And over the years, I’ve realized that I also have a secret, underlying drive to connect with communities as well. Being told to choose one path for the rest of my life was close to impossible.
I found the New Media Certificate in my fall semester of sophomore year. After changing my major 7 times, I lucked out with the UGA career consultant I was scheduled with for a meeting, who introduced me to the certificate after telling her about my dilemma. The main conclusion I drew from that meeting was that I should search for programs that are skill building-oriented, which I could then be able to use for whatever career path I decide to go on. I really loved the concept of “new media” because I have always been fascinated with the Web; ever since I was able to make social media accounts, I’ve used every platform extensively enough to find workarounds to share specific things the services can’t easily do, such as only being able to display GIFs to IG stories by copying and pasting images from my Camera Roll instead of direct uploading.
The biggest thing I am taking away from the NMI is how much I love being able to utilize different digital platforms to tell a story. I always have a lot to say and so much I want to share, and I’ve really enjoyed taking classes in front-end web development, app development, and building on my design skills to practice the best ways to communicate my ideas. For example, after doing a music-related project in Intro to Web Dev, Advanced Web Dev, and App Dev, I found that Javascript is my favorite way of allowing users to more directly interact with the music I want to share, while WordPress is best for sharing reviews of songs and albums. And a unique surprise to all of this is that the NMI helped me stumble upon the field of digital humanities, which utilizes new media skills and tools to create web/digital-based projects, usually revolving around archiving, public history, and data visualization.
The NMI has also inspired me to pursue the Informatics certificate here at UGA as well, where I am learning Python and taking computational tools-related classes to further this skill-building mission I’m on. However, I still have one more year left of undergrad — even though I’ve completed the New Media Certificate, I (hopefully) don’t think this will be the end of me taking the courses! Everyone on the NMI team — be prepared to get sick of me.