We collaborated with NYT best-selling author, Jonathan Haidt, to create a website that not only promotes his book ‘The Anxious Generation’ but also serves as the foundation for the movement to restore play-based childhoods. In his book, Haidt delves into the transition from traditional, play-oriented child-rearing to a predominantly phone-centric upbringing and discusses its implications.
Jonathan and his team didn’t just want to create a book. They wanted to create a movement. They wanted a site that could educate you about the book, but more importantly compelled visitors to want to become a part of the movement itself.
We also had a pretty tight deadline. They had an opportunity to a piece in The Atlantic, and needed an initial version of a site up to have a place to send people and ideally capture newsletter signups.
We started with something small, focusing exclusively on the homepage. The goal was to communicate the key ideas of the book, cast the vision for the movement, and capture signups. We got it designed and built in just a few weeks, in time for the Atlantic piece. Which was good, because thousands of people signed up right away.
We’re working together to build out the site over time, which allows the team to make decisions as they learn. Rather than making arbitrary decisions up front that will likely be wrong, we’re making them as we go. It’s a much tighter collaboration than a typical agency/client relationship.
Movements aren’t about features or benefits. They’re about stories. You have to capture the imagination of your visitors. You have to cast a vision of what a better future looks like, and why being part of the movement is important. You’re creating missionaries, not users.
We worked closely with the author and his team to tell the story as clearly and persuasively as possible.
The best client-firm relationships are built on shared trust. And one manifestation of that is you don’t need to create deliverables for deliverables sake.
Because of their emphasis on speed and organically building out the site, we’ve been way less picky in Figma. We do a couple versions, get their feedback, and get to code quickly. We don’t like editing artifacts that will ultimately go away if we don’t have to.
We don’t worry about creating prototypes that anticipate every scenario. We trust we’ll address those things as they come. But this approach requires trust on both sides.
One tool we created was a sample petition. Users would fill out some fields, and it would generate a custom printable PDF file for them.
Another example was their world map of aligned organizations. We created a Google Spreadsheet and a series of automations, generating a JSON file that loads the organizations on an interactive map. This allows them to add organizations over time, without having to build out a complex CMS to handle it.
Trying to track down WordPress plugins and wrangling them to do what you need is frustrating and ineffective. It’s faster to code it, and you get exactly what you want.
(For those who care, this site was built in Next.js, using Contentful as the headless CMS, hosted on Vercel. It’s integrated with HubSpot to handle their newsletter and forms.)
Doing that requires an understanding. Either you will be handling the responsibilities for maintenance as the client, or you’re signing up for a longer-term relationship with your firm. Jonathan and his team understood this. They want this to be a living breathing site that evolves as they learn.