Diabetes UK interactive Timelines - 75 facts for 75 years of caring
Background
Diabetes UK, the UK’s largest charity for people with diabetes, aims to improve the quality of life for people with the condition. Founded in 1934 by RD Lawrence and HG Wells, Diabetes UK is celebrating its 75th Anniversary during 2009 with a series of themed activities.
Requirement
Showcasing an initial 75 major milestones in the history of diabetes and the work of the charity is part of the anniversary celebrations. Diabetes UK asked Chameleon Net to create a timeline to enable users to access this information as a whole or by segmentation into any one of six discrete strands.
Accessibility was a key design consideration as many people with diabetes have eye problems as a complication of the condition. Diabetes UK wanted the feature to allow users to contribute content, subject to editorial approval, thus creating an ever-evolving feature that visitors would return to regularly.
Solution
Woking closely with Diabetes UK, Chameleon Net designed and developed the timeline, http://timeline.diabetes.org.uk/ , using Adobe Flash and Microsoft .NET. This shows the six strands in vibrant colour-coded tabs. Below the tabs, on a horizontal scroll bar, sits the range of dates, also colour-coded, in intervals of ten years (200 in the History strand).
Users can navigate through the years to relevant content, which appears in a text box along with links to further reading. Where appropriate, an image adjacent to the text box also appears.
Also displayed are any user contributions relevant to the strand and date range. Adding contributions is possible via the ‘+Add yours’ button which, when clicked on, opens a simple submission form. User submissions can be reviewed by Diabetes UK before being published.
Results
The timeline presents information about diabetes and Diabetes UK in an intuitive and compact format. Users can navigate between facts across any of the six subject strands in two clicks. Interactivity is encouraged by the user submission function while the Chameleon Net content management system (CMS) gives Diabetes UK staff full editorial control.
A complementary Research timeline at http://timeline.diabetes.org.uk/research.html reproduces the Research strand of the full edition, adding depth to its content while maintaining full interactive functionality. This was created as a separate element for the revamped Research section of the Diabetes UK website.