Science for curious minds

One of the Academy’s most ambitious goals is for Nova to create a more scientifically literate public.

Our challenge was to support this goal by creating a website that provided topical, relevant, and scientifically accurate information in such an engaging and interactive way that students, teachers, media, government and the general public would use Nova as the ‘go to’ science reference site – thus increasing its reach over time.

The Academy also wanted the new website to support their ultimate goal by improving collaboration and cross-publishing with other science information providers and journalists.

We conducted a number of focus groups and interviews with stakeholders including some of Australia’s most accomplished Academic fellows, representative users and the project team. One comment about Nova’s future vision – ‘solid ideas explained through dynamic media’ – encapsulates the feedback well.

We then created a series of user personas and stories, wire frames and an Information Architecture and validated them with users. The next step was to produce an innovative and multi-layered user interface; and a content framework suitable for users of vastly different ages and backgrounds.

Finally, we deployed the Drupal content management system to manage the many functions and different types of content for launch, including ‘pull out’ quotes and insights, glossary, additional reading, activities, and infographics.