The Story Project home page displaying their instructions on how to record as well as their latest recorded story
Recording times book-able via Booking Bug
The Story Project administration area enables upload and insertion of mp3 audio files
Facilitating Social History
For: The Story Project
The Story Project is a creative initiative and not for profit organisation. In 2010, they asked us to develop their brand and build a website which would help them capture and share everyday people’s stories, providing a snapshot of life for the community and future generations.
The Challenge
The Story Project needed a strong web presence, on a tight budget, which quickly and easily enabled people to book a timeslot for audio recording sessions. As this was their pilot project, the major objective was to attract funding and industry sponsorship to allow them to expand the initiative across the state and ultimately, the country.
The PunkLogic Approach
We loved the community, inter-generational ethic of this project so we worked up a strong brand identity to carry this through both their on- and offline presence.
While we were all brimming with brilliant ideas for their online presence, the limited budget required us to apply a strictly phased approach to development. Our tight project management methodology proved invaluable in managing expectations and timescales.
We chose BookingBug’s off-the-shelf, hosted reservations system to handle the audio session bookings, integrated with a Wordpress site. This suitable off-the-peg solution could do (almost) everything the client required. We worked in close collaboration with the BookingBug team in the UK to ensure all of the requirements were met. BookingBug were supportive and collaborative and our feedback helped in return to make usability improvements to their product.
The Result
A visually appealing, easy to use website integrated with a simple, effective 3-step booking system that allows users to see which slots are available, click, and enter their details.
With limited funding and no sponsorship, promotion of the project was contained to Facebook, the Council library newsletter and word of mouth; but just 3 weeks after the site launched, over a quarter of the available timeslots were reserved. With a strong web presence to support their initiative, The Story Project is also much closer to achieving their ultimate objective to roll out the programme in other regions. They are currently in talks with a possible industry sponsor and are looking to launch a 2nd pilot in the near future.
We wish this worthwhile project best of luck and look forward to watching it grow and supporting their progress through to the next stages of development.