New Work & Process

Health Trek is Group Health's nutrition and fitness education program for middle schoolers. Design Commission established a relationship with Group Health back in 2004 when we created program's first website. This time around DC was asked to create not only a new version of the site, but also a new educational Flash game to feature on it.

Discovery: First up, we analyzed how students and teachers used the existing Health Trek and how we could evolve that experience to maximize the use of the site. Because of their keen sense of style and trends, aesthetics was key to helping kids relate to the site’s content.

Planning: The next step was to generate a site map, user flows, and wireframes to define the experience of the site from end-to-end. These documents were the foundation Matty (designer) and Jon (developer) leveraged to design and build a new user experience for Health Trek.

Design: With planning accomplished, Matty set about making the site visually engaging and digestible (pun intended) for students and teachers alike. Sketching initial concepts helped identify a number of directions for the design. Then, Matty transformed sketches into designs and, with his trusted Wacom tablet at his side, illustrated many of the key concepts on the site. We ended up with the spitting image of what we set out to achieve: a site that is both visually playful and informative.

Development & QA: Jon took the baton from Matty, turning the designs into a living, breathing website. Once the structure was in place Jon created an easy-to-update content management system using Ruby on Rails. As development wound-down, the rest of the team began testing the site. Quality Assurance (QA) is a crucial step each of our projects but with teenagers involved a little extra bullet-proofing is important.

About the Game: The creation of a new Flash game began with a brainstorming session with the whole team. We narrowed it down to three concepts, which Matt (game designer and developer) then sketched and presented to Group Health. The Health Trek quiz concept was selected; static designs were created and vetted for kinks–the development commenced. Once the game was operable, the game was tested and then integrated into the site.

Project management notes from Stephanie: "The challenges of project management are the same across most interactive design projects. We're tasked with seeing potential train wrecks in time to avoid them with precision. Health Trek's planning unfolded in the way we like: An agile team, on the spot budgeting, a reasonable timeline and a wonderful client. From a project manager's perspective Health Trek was a true cupcake, of the red velvet breed."