YouthNet blog

Monday Mar 05, 2007

V-inspired?

The new volunteering site, vinspired.com, from post-Russell Commission youth charity, v, is still in beta but that's perhaps the best time to offer some initial thoughts on the design and layout of the site.

YouthNet has worked with v to provide the search functionality on vinspired, and have also received grants from v, but I've not been involved in any part of the process and blog here in an independent capacity, so I'm coming to the site with no preconceptions or inside knowledge.

Let's start with the name. One of the benefits of the much-debated 'v' brand is the ability to put the letter in front of other words and phrases. In the context of the organisation 'v pleased to meet you', 'v excited' and 'vinspired' all work well.

Confusion might arise for people who've never heard of v, however. For example, what will football fans make of the hoardings at grounds at the moment simply stating 'vinspired.org'? Will it make enough sense to encourage them to find out more, or will they simply be confused?

This goes back to the debates around the branding of the organisation. On the one hand, young people say that 'volunteering' is an off-putting word. On the other, if you don't use it, people can be left with no idea what you're offering.

YouthNet's do-it.org.uk website has exactly the same problem, of course. One way to counter it, for us, has been to have a strapline – 'Volunteering made easy' - as part of our logo. On their homepage, v's strapline – 'Inspiring a million more young volunteers' is effective, but perhaps that message will need to be spread more widely.

Another area where confusion could arise is in the use of different urls. Vinspired.org is being used for a particular advertising campaign, but is it really a good idea to have it leading to a different site than vinspired.com? Perhaps that's just a beta issue, but there's also a third site: wearev.com, containing all the organisational information.

Moving on to the site itself, my first impressions of vinspired.com are positive. The colour palate is clear and restrained. The site feels modern and full of life and information. The search is prominent and easy to use. The navigation makes sense and the vquestions section seems comprehensive. I also like ability to search using vtags.

It's interesting that, like us when we redesigned do-it a few years ago, they've gone for a leaping man on the home page. The upside is that it's a neutral image that doesn't restrict the idea of what volunteering is. The downside, as we've been made aware many times, is that it doesn't say anything about what volunteering is.

The vcallback service – requesting a mentor to help you volunteer – looks like a real innovation, although the success of this, along with the blogs and forums won't be known until they've been up and running for several months.

A possible drawback with these new services and features is that the site gets a little cluttered. To my mind the homepage lacks focus slightly. My belief working on do-it.org.uk was that we didn't want anything to distract people from searching the database. That's the best way to learn about volunteering and what's on offer. Everything else is an extra.

There's also a problem using the site on smaller screens. On my lap-top, with the IE menu bar open, the right hand side of the site (including the search) isn't visible.

No doubt v will be adding to their site over the coming weeks and months, and tweaking it in various ways. It will be interesting to see how young people respond to it and how it develops.