Healthy Eating
Challenge
The Client needed an interactive, educational CD series about eating healthy to reduce cancer risk to be used by lower income African American children 11-14 years of age in youth services agencies across the greater New York City area. The CDs had to play on Windows 98 with a gigabyte of RAM because the participating youth services agencies did not have access to new machines and current operating systems.
Solution
A mix of video, audio, animation, graphics, original music and songs were used to engage and educate the children. Amateur urban talent was used to better relate to the target audience, with over a dozen actors taking part in voice over, video roles and rapping the original songs. Multiple backgrounds and more than 100 fruits and vegetables were illustrated for use, and a large cast of characters was created and illustrated. We green screened some characters for video segments, placing them in various backgrounds.
Results
• Multiple focus groups were held before, during and after production with children in the age range at Boys and Girls’ Clubs, YWCAs and YMCAs. We used their feedback to create characters, look and feel, backgrounds, and to test interactivity.
• We used lingo, Flash, actionscript, javascript, and mpg movies to produce the different segments. We used Director to wrap everything up in, enabling the necessary interactivity while allowing the CDs to run on Windows 98.
• The interactive elements allowed users to make choices that identified them as being part of one group and take them down one of three paths:
• Grape, sessions 2, 3, 4, eating unhealthy and unlikely to change eating habits
• Apple, sessions 5, 6, 7, eating unhealthy and likely to change eating habits
• Carrot, sessions 8, 9, 10, eating healthy
• Based on the users' choices, strategies, benefits, and stories are offered for encouragement and education. Key interactive elements include a menu planner for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack; and drag and drop plate section enabling users to choose from more than 100 fruits and vegetables categorized in the program's five color choices.
See more of our CD and interactive work.
NuZoo won a Gold International Davey Award |
