Project Description
 The BRITE Initiative had written an extensive guide to coping
with dyslexia, aimed at supporting students in further education – but
containing useful information for staff (lecturers, advisers,
learning assistants) as well. This project took off because
the BRITE Team wanted to create an online resource, using
their materials as the content – but exploiting the
potential of technology to get their message across. Highly
visual in nature, the guide is split into sections on understanding
dyslexia, how to get general help and how to cope better
with studies.
Project Challenge
The main challenge was to produce an informative, friendly
resource which would enable users to access lots of information
without having to read lots of paper based materials. The
guide had to successfully blend minimal interaction with
maximum delivery – users would select a topic and then
be given information on that topic using a combination of
stills, video, audio and motion graphics.
Production Challenge
We decided at the outset to use Macromedia Flash to deliver
the content as we wanted the guide to be highly visual and
stimulating whilst downloading quickly and reaching the maximum
amount of users. We had to integrate and synchronise a lot
of still photography and motion graphics to a voiceover and
video inserts. Flash enabled us to combine all of these elements
within one wrapper which could fit visually alongside the
clients existing web resources. The guide had to be easily
accessible within the sector on DSL connections but also
flexible enough for delivery through dial up or even offline
so we decided to embed the video and insert pre-loaders for
all content. Although this presented an initial download
time, this did have the advantage of caching the content
for subsequent viewings, and also facilitated easy distribution
on CDROM where required.
Result
We invested a lot of time in evaluating different technologies
which would facilitate the kind of delivery required for
this project and the main benefit has been the response from
the end users. We have created a credible resource which
simply did not exist before and our feedback suggests that
our implementation path really works – all of the comments
we have received have not been about the technology, they
have been about the content. The flexible nature of production
cycle also makes this project easy to update and the client
now has a model for future project developments and delivery
in other subject areas.
Client Comment
“In our area of work, lots of practitioners speak
of the value of using multi-sensory approaches when overcoming
barriers to learning – but few of them have had access
to the sort of expertise we have been able to benefit from
through working with Cactus. We knew what we wanted to achieve – and
they helped to turn our aspiration into a reality. Everyone
who has used the online resource since its launch in November
2004 has been really impressed with it.”
Alison Cox, BRITE Initiative Director
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