For Priority Research Ltd I designed a more interactive environment for a unique data collection and analysis methodology, used for capturing children and young peoples’ responses to questions about service provision.

The brief was to create something that was designed by children and young people, for children and young people… it needed to be ‘cutting edge’ and non-gender specific. I initially worked closely with children and their families at Alder Hey Children’s hospital, gathering ideas for the characters and animations that would be used in the final product.

Pencil sketches and storyboards were presented to the board to depict how the characters would entertain children, whilst the toolkit gathered their feedback using an interactive questionnaire.

Over 40 initial animations were required for the product launch, needing to be between 4-10 seconds long. For each sequence, Lightwave 3D was used to animate the required characters, backdrop and accessories. Each asset was separately rendered as a jpg image and imported into Adobe Flash.Lightwave 3D was used to create each character, scene backdrops and any equipment/accessories the characters required. This gave it a ‘cutting edge’ look, as requested. Small renders could be quickly created and incorporated into the animated sequences, whilst high resolution renders could be used for promotional material, including banners, posters, billboards, etc.

Sound effects were recorded and included in the animations. Compression was paramount as content needed to be downloaded first, held locally on the toolkit, before being used by the respondent. Working closely with the senior programming engineer at PRL, the animations were incorporated into the final product.

Marketing material, including 7 ft banners, handouts, posters and a Power Point presentation were designed, requiring hi-resolution images of each character, in requested poses.

The NPT (along with Fabio the Frog) was launched at the BT Tower in 2010. The toolkit was further developed to incorporate older respondents and is now being used to gather patient feedback in hospitals, GP practices and is being adapted into the housing and retail sectors.

For more information about Fabio the Frog, visit: NPToolkit