Design

Good design is a visual conversation and at CivicActions, we’re fluent in the language. Our team is keen to develop designs that will deliver your message in a clear, concise and compelling manner.

WITNESS Video Hub

The WITNESS Video Hub is a participatory website where anyone, anywhere can upload human rights related media that can be used to create change. Using technologies such as cell phones and other mobile devices, web-based video upload and content distribution, online community building, advocacy and organizational tools, the Video Hub provides new opportunities to feed the populist shift toward user-generated content with media in the service of global human rights advocacy.

Drupalcon SF Session Proposal: Guerilla Usability Testing

Submitted by Zoey Kroll on March 1, 2010 - 11:18am

Today is the final day to vote for sessions at Drupalcon San Francisco. My proposed session Show Don't Tell: Guerilla Usability Testing will outline quick usability testing strategies to bring users to the decision-making table.

PolicyOptions.org Pilot Site Development

As part of its pilot, the PolicyOption.org initiative used a wiki (see http://policyoptions.pbworks.com) where college students researched issue briefs as a start for their network of local community think tanks.

PolicyOptions.org Initiative

The Policy Options Inititive seeks to establish a network of local community think tanks that will make policy information, news, and research available on websites, weekly email news updates, and research. These community think tanks will feature local, state, and national policy news and analysis on topics of local interest that draw upon policies and program models from around the country and world.

The goal of the PolicyOptions.org is to fill an important gap in our public life: the availability of accurate, balanced, comprehensive information and analysis about the issues that we care about and hope to impact through public policy and civic engagement. We believe that this information is critical to informed citizen action in shaping policy and planning program improvements.

They will tap the underutilized research capacity of institutions of higher education to create local and state level community think tanks, which will be housed in participating college or university public policy or community outreach centers or institutes. These locally-focused bureaus will be linked through an affiliate structure to cover state issues and to a central national office that will cover national and international policy and program activity.

Education Trust

We're very happy to announce the launch of www.edtrust.org, the website of Education Trust, an DC-based non profit that:

Idealist.org Builds a Network and a Brand

Submitted by Zoey Kroll on November 19, 2009 - 8:14pm

Idealist.org just hatched a campaign to create a decentralized and adaptable network of idealists. Within the first few days of launch, people from over 140 countries have signed up. For what? Well, I'm not quite sure, and Idealist.org isn't either. This is a network experiment and, as they explain on their site, it will transparently evolve with feedback from the participants.

In addition to its activist merit, the campaign is an example of an ingenious brand-building strategy. Idealist.org's website offers the standard features for sharing the idealist logo on social networking sites and forwarding to friends. More significantly, however, participants conflate a personal attribute and the organization's name as one and the same. Strong brand names offer that kind of potential. I'm an idealist, are you?

I'm part of another decentralized network of idealists: CivicActions. Decentralization provides CivicActions with strategic advantages; the organization can quickly tap local technological and cultural trends, work with the best talent in the world, and communicate with a global audience. I'm a CivicActioner, are you? We love to partner with smart, idealistic organizations and individuals. Contact us and let's get the conversation started.

Zoey Kroll's blog

Build iPhone Compatible Drupal Websites Using iWebkit: Part 3 - final release of iWebkit theme

Submitted by Sumit Kataria on November 2, 2009 - 5:39am

Finally iWebkit theme for drupal-iPhone websites is production ready. Theme now includes Drupal form theming and 12 different subthemes to suit your color preferences.

From Now on this theme will be maintained on drupal.org as iWebkit project.

Features added since last release are:

Form elements are now themed. All form elements now looks like default iphone forms. This means there is no need to add custom user-login, comments or node add forms for your iphone website, you can directly use drupal default forms and they will be automatically converted into iPhone style form elements.
- Select list and Checkboxes look like-
- Radio buttons and Text-area look like-

Three Causes and Associated Symptoms of a Poorly Conceived Redesign Project

Submitted by RonAkanowicz on August 29, 2009 - 9:01am

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." Anonymous, often attributed to Dan Quayle

Determining if your website project will be a success or failure is tricky. It's like trying to decide if the pizza you're about to eat will be good or bad (which can be a trick question- when is pizza ever that bad?).

Do You Want to Present a Hot Site at DrupalCon Paris?

Submitted by Aaron Pava on August 24, 2009 - 9:37pm

We're heading to Paris to serve up a sweet entree of 15 five-minute speed presentations showcasing some of the most tasty Drupal dishes!

How to Eat 15 Drupal Sites in 90 Minutes

Do you have a yummy site and the skills to show it off in just 5 minutes?

All 15 presenters will be speed-geeking in the Ignite presentation format (20 slides, 15 seconds each) as we chow through all the sweet deliciousness.

If you think you have what it takes to cook up something special and you can already taste your 5 minutes of fame, then let us know that you want to play!

The only question remains -- can you stand the heat?!

WhereItsAtNYC.org

Where It's At NYC is another great example of a mostly "out-of-the box" drupal implementation. The defining characteristic of the site's implemention is its principal navigation structure based on a large (200+ term) taxonomy written in the form of first person "I" statements like "I need emergency housing services", "I have questions about STI's HIV, AIDS and other related issues". These statements are organized into five "domains"--education, employment, health, housing, and social--reflecting the broadest categorization of the social service resources listed on the site.