NARAL Pro-Choice America: Interactive Publication
For decades, NARAL Pro-Choice America (NPCA) has published Who Decides?, a definitive state-by-state review of the status of women's reproductive rights in the United States. The organization decided to expand its reach and currency in 2004 by publishing the report on the Web for the first time. The organization required assistance with the creative and functional development of the site to be sure that the online product was more engaging than the traditional printed publication.
The Challenge: NPCA wanted to do something special for its 13th annual publication of Who Decides? A State-by-State Report on the Status of Women's Reproductive Rights. For the first time, the entire publication was to be published on the Web - making its entire content easily referenced and searchable. The online design for this nearly 300-page publication required careful consideration to ensure that the information would be readily digestible to casual visitors. At the same time, it had to allow deeply engaged readers access to all of the detail behind the publications data and statistics.
The Solution: NPCA chose to leverage content management software that the organization had already purchased for its parent site, www.prochoiceamerica.org. In a previous project, Beaconfire had installed and customized PaperThin's CommonSpot content management system for the organization's Web site. This software also offered the functionality needed for the new Who Decides? site. Beaconfire's designers provided a creative design for the new subsite that fit into the organization's family of Web properties, yet established a distinct look for the publication and its unique template requirements. Meanwhile, Beaconfire's technology team worked with NPCA to identify the set of features and functions that would be available to visitors. While the publishing process needed to be simple, with content published just once, the visitors had to be able to browse or use the content in a variety of ways. NPCA wanted visitors to be able to:
- Browse each state's issue summaries and detailed issue descriptions;
- View each state's report card "grade" as scored on 13 categories;
- View all issue summaries on a single page;
- View a printer-friendly version of any page; and
- Send any page to a friend via email.
The Web version of Who Decides? (www.prochoiceamerica.org/whodecides) extends the reach of the publication further than any previous edition and does so in a format that is more searchable, more browsable, and ultimately more useful than ever before. The new online edition of Who Decides? fortifies the organization's position as leader in the fight for reproductive rights for women in the United States.