Must Design

Nonprofit Websites
Nonprofit websites are designed to tell stories something we all need to do these days. My favs include Housing Works, Too Young To Wed and Melting Away.

Storytelling Web Design
How can a website tell a story? By rethinking websites as related content capable of telling a story in either direction and on their own we see the difficulty we face when telling stories using websites.

Websites go forward and backward in time because any page can become a "homepage" based on links or search. A webpage needs to be self sufficient - telling a story on their own - and connected in a dasiy chain where each step along the chain reinforces the chain's connections and "storyline".

This post discusses ways to use tools such as videos and arresting visuals. Graphics are a HUGE and helpful device online. If your story includes icons you've created a navigational language teaching readers to look for symbols when they want to move through the deck.

This is one of the reasons I love icons. Icons aren't fixed in space or time and their connection to each other can be strong or weak. The key is to keep readers reading. The challenge is thinking about information architecture that can easily pay off on its own and point in different directions based on how readers consume the content.

Best storytelling sites I've discovered include:

http://www.robinhood.org/

http://www.redcross.org/

http://www.ihadcancer.com/

Notice a trend? Nonprofits tell better stories in general and their websites  function more as great story telling aids than most for profit companies. If you have favorite storytelling websites please share and we will curate in.