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case studies > WeeMee integration provides identity to the online NHS community
WeeMee integration provides identity to the online NHS community
Client:
Microsoft
The brief
Enhance the Microsoft NHS Resource Centre by allowing NHS employees to create their own unique profile picture, or avatar. Registered users of the site were already able to pick from a standard list of pre-built avatars, but it was felt that this did not offer in-depth personalisation.
The solution
WeeWorld, the founders of the WeeMee – a quirky cartoon character created online that can be given a wide range of looks and accessories – were selected to be the partner for the project. WeeWorld exposes a feature-rich API that can return an image of the requested WeeMee in any dimension as well as their WeeMee “builder” allowing users to customise their own WeeMee.
Integration had to consider that the user’s avatar is deployed in several different locations and in several dimensions throughout the site. In the site header the avatar image is displayed in thumbnail form, so to achieve an attractive head-and-shoulders view of their WeeMee, a large image is rendered and then clipped using only CSS. In other locations the WeeWorld API presents the images in exactly the right dimensions, helping to reduce page load times.
To change a WeeMee, the “builder” was hosted within an AJAX callout window to respect the visual appearance of the website and to remain consistent with the website’s user interface. WeeWorld accommodated our request to host the builder in this type of container and we were able to asynchronously handle events from WeeWorld, ultimately delivering a smart user experience.
Using AJAX to present WeeMee builder
WeeMee integrated into site
The result
The reaction to the delivery of the solution was universally positive - the client wanted to build their own WeeMee avatars there and then! The integration into the site’s framework is seamless, WeeMee avatars directly replacing the old generic avatars with no service impact and with minimum cognitive burden on the users due to the familiarity of the retained concept. Within weeks, more than 10% of the user community had upgraded their profiles and thanks to a reactive campaign launched on users’ homepages advertising the benefits of creating a WeeMee the uptake is rising sharply.
Home page campaign to promote use
Great uptake of WeeMee
Further information
Media coverage on this project has been published here: http://gigaom.com/2008/03/20/microsft-brings-weeworld-to-the-nhs/ and subsequently reproduced by WeeWorld here: http://www.weeworld.com/about/news_item.aspx?home=yes&NewsID=190.
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