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BACK TO ALL WORK
OUR WORK

Adolescent Atlas for Action (A3) Website

CLIENT
Population Council’s Girl Innovation, Research, and Learning (GIRL) Center
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BACK TO ALL WORK
Background + Challenge

The GIRL Center at the Population Council has been a leader in providing policymakers, practitioners, investors, and advocates (“decision-makers”) around the world with the data-driven, evidence-based, updated information they need to make informed investment and policy decisions on adolescents. The GIRL Center and their donors believe that tremendous opportunity exists for economic growth and development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through investing in adolescents. The Adolescent Atlas for Action (A3) website was created as a hub to efficiently and accessibly support decision-makers focused on adolescents around the world.

 

This project called upon our strategic, conceptual, and planning skills, as well as our design and development expertise. The project team, led by the GIRL Center, was comprised of Owl’s Head strategists, designers and developers, and data analysts and visualization experts from Barcelona-based OneTandem.

 

The A3 website was developed with funding from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

Project Goals

  • Paint a unified picture of young lives and make the case for strategic action and investment
  • Provide interactive portal of mapped global, national, and sub-national data reflecting key indicators of adolescent well-being
  • Include tools to summarize the lives and needs of adolescents
  • Be easy to use and allow for data updates
Services
Services
Services Provided
Data Integration
Digital Strategy
Front End Development
Website Design + Development
A3 website Home Page
Visit the website a3.popcouncil.org
Approach 

Working closely with the GIRL team and OneTandem, we devised a plan for a user-centric website that would complement the data visualizations, analytics, and stories, also providing:

  • The story behind A3 and why its offerings are of value
  • A searchable library of companion resources (e.g., training videos and research tools)
  • A blog of stakeholder insights to benefit and round out the site user experience

This complex project required careful coordination. We started with requirements reviews and brainstorming sessions and evolved those team decisions into the aesthetics, information architecture, and user-experience design. We connected early and often to ensure all stakeholders were aligned with the visuals and that anticipated content would be delivered according to specs that assured the core ideas would be clear and actionable.

Our visual focus was on graphic collages representing data mixed with images of adolescents to drive home the idea that this information is founded in research on the needs of adolescents. We chose a palette of trustworthy blues mixed with pastels to set a hopeful tone.

The final site included:

  • A lively springboard of a home page to explain the tools that were available and drive users to the information specific to their needs
  • Links to adolescent indicators on everything from climate to poverty to education to sexual and reproductive health, and many more
  • Access to a database of existing adolescent-based national policies around the world
  • Access to a catalog of more than 700 data sources on adolescents and young people living in low- and middle-income countries
  • Linked supporting resources, including research papers, briefs, in-depth policy reports, and summaries from events, workshops, and conferences
  • Link to a blog of categorized insights and deeper dives into the A3 data

“Our team of researchers at the GIRL Center spent considerable time formulating the idea behind the A3 and aggregating key indicators focused on adolescents. We needed a web design and development team that clearly understood our mission and could deliver a high quality, user-friendly website within a short timeframe. Owls’ Head Solutions began with an in-depth discovery phase to understand our potential users and the story we wanted to tell with the website. They really took the time to listen to us and iterate on our ideas to create a website that met our criteria. Working with Owl’s Head meant I knew exactly what to expect and when to expect it – there were no hidden or unexpected surprises. They also thoughtfully worked with the dashboard designers, OneTandem, to ensure seamless integration with their sites. Through this collaboration, we were able to create something that has the potential to grow into a leading website focused on evidence and data for adolescents.”

—Sarah Islam, Manager of the GIRL Center at the Population Council

Impact

The GIRL Center team and the Population Council are delighted with the resulting website and impressed with our strategic design, development, and cross-functional team management skills. The site is easy to use and features critical, actionable, and timely information. Built on a WordPress CMS platform, the site is easy for the GIRL Center to maintain and build on as needed.

The site has been shared with project sponsors and will soon be demonstrated to embassies around the world so that they and their constituents can turn to it as a resource in their decision- making. It is expected to be an invaluable tool as stakeholders plan yearly strategies on where to invest in adolescent-focused programs.

Filed Under: Case Study, Featured