National Grid Floe

My colleague Yianni showed me this wildly interactive website by the National Grid called Floe.  This is launched at the heals of news that Polar Bears are now an endangered species. Oh NO! Save the Polar Bear!

The Floe site from National Grid does a great job at using the case of the Polar Bear to teach consumers about easy, everyday energy efficient habits that make a big difference for the environment. The website is phenomenal being both highly engaging and educative. I would suggest checking it out... you might learn a thing or two about what you can do to save the earth (and yourself) from global warming.

Comments

[Nina]

I started exploring the site until the baby polar bear looked so heartbroken and distraught that I had to stop :(

[mikemookie]

i might be too close to this to be unbiased since i work on National Grid but didn't work on the Floe site, so going to keep it to 2 issues i have w/ the user experience (this is based on the assumption that concept of the site is a good one).

1. the site is extremely heavy. taking a long time for the intro and the transitions to load. i wonder how much of the experience is fluff vs. real value. an example would be the loading time for each of the flash-movie transitions of the bear jumping from one ice sheet to another. could a just as "delightful" transition been created that didnt require so much effort? also, is flash the most appropriate platform for the community section interface?

2. too much real estate priority is given to the bear and ice-cap landscape in the "take action" section leaving the actual engaging & valuable content relegated to the bottom in small type. when playing with the interface the payoff is all about the the numerical results produced with each combination and choice. but there is no prominence given to those numbers. the impact is lost. why do the results have to be so small? they should be nice and big and legible. the only content given any real type of visual prominence is the same statement over and over again "has the same carbon impact." not very useful.

at the end of the day, i think it is great that there is a real emphasis on actually being able to 'take action' by creating an action list. i also like how the goals are very achievable goals. plus, the interaction with the polar cub is a fun way to get tips (even though the time it takes probably keeps users from learning about all the facts as a result of opting out after the first few minutes). it's just feel there was a bit too much effort put into form over function on this.

...and those be me thoughts.
-mm