Design Phase: Shaping Planet 4
"The proper study of mankind is the science of design." (Herbert Simon)
The journey towards the new greenpeace.org is today entering one of its most exciting chapters >> Phase 3: Design.
After Discovering what was needed to change the way people take action from a Greenpeace website and Conceptualizing how this may actually happen, it is now time to build a clear picture of what Planet 4 will look like.
In the Design phase the project team and a bunch of superstar volunteers will deliver a clear picture of the user experience, the Planet 4 visual language, the complete technical approach and the performance measurement prototype.
As outlined in the roadmap below, all of this will turn into actual solutions that drive development in Phase #4 and, ultimately, become pilot sites.
From Concept to Design: the… Design track
The Concept released a few weeks ago is getting iteratively better thanks to the numerous and constructive feedback we received. Such feedback is being translated into tangible outputs, such as user flows, visual design studies, interactive style guides and interaction maps.
The Design gang, formed by Greenpeace staff, professional designers and volunteers, will work on visual design and tone in tandem, diagramming flows, selecting fonts, assessing content for the pilot sites and sketching down sitemaps. By heavily soliciting (and relying on) community feedback and inputs, the Planet 4 Design will evolve into the future Look & Feel of Greenpeace in the digital space.
>>> Do you want to help RIGHT NOW? Awesome. Tick the “Design” box in this form, both visual and content cohorts require loads of work, your help is super appreciated!
Completing the recipe for development: the Technical track
Planet 4 will be built on a Wordpress-based multi instance global architecture. Besides design inputs, what’s needed before jumping into development is a final direction on the hosting environment approach, which will be determined after a series of performance tests on two alternatives, a Kubernetes-based approach and a classic virtual machines approach.
Alongside final architecture, baseline themes, site repositories, test suites, deployment scripts and monitoring tools will be continuously integrated as individual components. This allows to make continuous improvements of each component individually while making sure the system functional as a whole, enabling smooth contribution at the same time.
The Technical team will specifically reach out to colleagues from Greenpeace offices who are going through Wordpress implementations, to identify which components make more sense for everyone to work with and reuse in the middle term.
The Planet 4 development team is growing as well, the vacancies of Front-End Developer and PHP Developer are still accepting applications. Feel free to check, share or apply, and may the force be with you.
>> Do you want to help RIGHT NOW? Tick the “Technical” box of the Planet 4 form and we’ll drop you a line (of code).
Understanding performances in a new way: the KPI & Analytics track
What’s needed to be tracked in Planet 4 is quite clear, it is now time to focus on HOW to properly track those KPIs. The Analytics team will deliver full processes and methodologies to set up, track and consolidate data using Google Analytics and 3rd party tools. A testable prototype to aggregate all those insights in Google Data Studio, for both public and Greenpeace audiences, will aim to set the standards for a new way to group and visualize P4 performances.
Beside those three working groups, support activities will continue to ensure that a Planet 4 rollout plan is delivered, a roadmap beyond pilot phase is developed, resources to keep rocking this project are allocated and that all the material produced is accessible and reusable by other change makers, developers or organizations.
Do you want to know more, share your thoughts or join the gang?
Nice. Sit comfortable and enjoy the full Design Phase plan.
If anything of what you read excites you, fill this 2 minute form and you will hear from the track leads to help out with one or more tasks.
If anything annoys you or remains unanswered, let us know at #GPP4, via email or by commenting right below (also valid if you love all this and simply want to make our day).
