Adaptive Path began working with Changemakers last Fall when Chris Heald, Technology Director, came to Adaptive Path with the need to redesign the Changemakers site with a new, innovative, user experience focus in order to meet the needs of the Changemakers community. The site hadn’t been updated in a number of years and the site experience needed a complete overhaul to stay relevant to its audience.

Adaptive Path tapped into their full range of company services including strategy, user research, information architecture, interaction design, visual design, and oversight of the technical implementation for the design and delivery of the new web site. “We are thrilled at the depth and breadth of expertise that our team brought to the project allowing us to do the needed research, strategy and design to meet Changemakers goals,” said Michael Meyer, CEO at Adaptive Path.

“Adaptive Path was the company that we wanted to work with on the web site re-design given their commitment to building best in class web site engagement experiences for other social innovator companies,” said Robert Benedict, Lead Project Manager for Design, Changemakers.

Adaptive Path began the Changemakers project by conducting in-depth user research, gathering feedback on the current site and learning about the unmet needs of the Changemakers community. Adaptive Path interviewed Changemakers staff, major sponsors such as Nike and the Robert Wood Johnson foundation as well as members of the Changemakers community around the world. Since Changemakers serves a global community, the Adaptive Path team interviewed social entrepreneurs in the United States, Australia, India, Macedonia & Uganda. The user research helped the Adaptive Path team understand what social entrepreneurs need from the site to have a significant impact on their efforts. In addition, the Adaptive Path team was able to illuminate how the unmet needs of Changemakers’ sponsors connected to those of the community. Armed with these insights, the team recommended major changes to the site’s information architecture and the addition of several new features including: updated member profiles, community discussion forums and a completely revamped search and browse experience designed around issues and geographical locations.

Adaptive Path’s new site structure and design yielded a site that the community, competition sponsors and the Changemakers organization all embrace. “Adaptive Path really shined when they presented a primary, secondary and tertiary navigation system for the Changemakers web site. Previously, the site was content rich but limited interaction and collaboration across the community. We are excited about the smart, innovative work that Adaptive Path has done for us; ultimately it will be the users who benefit most,” said Benedict. “Their strategic approach to the navigation will meet the varying needs of our users and expectations of the global user base.”

As the nearly seven month project comes to a close, both Changemakers and Adaptive Path agree that the project included both intense collaboration between the two organizations as well as generous give and take on both ends. Given a mutual interest in improving the lives of others, the two companies will continue to communicate beyond the web site’s launch to ensure that the sites user experiences are a success.

About Adaptive Path: Adaptive Path is a user experience strategy, research and design firm that helps companies deliver great experiences through their products and services. Widely recognized as thought-leaders in the emerging field of experience design, Adaptive Path has worked with leading organizations such MySpace, Flickr, Citysearch and the United Nations. The company has operations in San Francisco and in Austin, Texas. For more information on Adaptive Path please visit www.adaptivepath.com or contactus@adaptivepath.com.

Ashoka’s Changemakers is a global community of action that connects people with a passion for a better world with those who are making a lasting difference in their communities. Our more than 20 successful open source competitions have attracted groundbreaking organizations, social entrepreneurs, media, corporate leaders, community organizers and supporters who want to be part of our exciting and collaborative process of finding solutions to solve the world’s most pressing social problems, one idea, one project at a time. For more information on Changemakers please visit www.changemakers.com.

Adaptive Path conducted the research in Gujarat, India over a two month time period. They explored how people within the rural community of Gujarat use mobile devices in their daily life. Many people in India regularly use mobile devices, however the handsets available there are almost exclusively low-priced versions of products developed for the very different Western countries of Europe and the United States. Adaptive Path’s research findings denote a tremendous need for specialized mobile devices appropriate to the rural environment, and to support the very different family-based commerce and community-based infrastructure of rural India and other emerging markets. Adaptive Path’s research also identifies compelling opportunity for product differentiation through simple functionality, clear navigation, design elements which provide associations to local culture, and many features counter-intuitive to the Western user, designer and manufacturer.

Adaptive Path takes the research knowledge a step further by providing tangible visions of design opportunities for product development of mobile devices within emerging markets. “This sensitive approach to research and design demonstrates Adaptive Path’s dedication to our core mission of delivering great experiences that improve people’s lives,” says Michael Meyer, CEO at Adaptive Path.

At the forefront of strategy, design and research, this project adds to Adaptive Path’s depth and breadth of knowledge in the mobile market. “We are extremely pleased with the Mobile Literacy work. It demonstrates our ability to conduct and synthesize field work into clear, actionable project concepts that tangibly communicate product needs based on research findings,” says Meyer.

Adaptive Path recently executed similar research, strategy and design work for other leading mobile companies including Palm and worked in conjunction with a major Mobile device manufacturer on design insights, implications, and future concepts for mobile applications and services.

About Adaptive Path: Adaptive Path is a world-class experience strategy, user research and design firm that helps companies deliver great user experiences through their products and services. Widely recognized as thought-leaders in the emerging field of experience design, Adaptive Path has worked with leading organizations such MySpace, Flickr, Citysearch, Palm and a global top-three mobile device manufacturer. The company has operations in San Francisco and in Austin, Texas. For more information on Adaptive Path please visit www.adaptivepath.com or contactus@adaptivepath.com. To view more information on the Mobile Literacy research and design project, please visit www.adaptivepath.com/mobileliteracy

For Adaptive Path
Julia Houck-Whitaker, 415-495-8270 (R&D Manager)
julia@adaptivepath.com
or
Heidi Vasconi, 925-254-3093 (Press)
heidivasconi@yahoo.com