Stad le Cheile-Using a digital platform to educate children on the effects of drink and drugs

Abstract

As all charitable organisations attempt to ease the fall-out from the effects of social problems every day, they face a complex four-tier problem. They need to communicate their message, to the right audience, using the most effective medium and they need to engage the audience at the right time or stage of their life. And they struggle to solve this four-tier problem with limited funds and resources. A digital platform is a medium for communication that could consist of a website and an array of social networking websites. These platforms are freely available, non-technical and have large user communities. They provide the perfect space for non-technical people to quickly publish content and deliver it to the desired audience. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of an interface are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. If a charitable organisation adopted a user-centered design methodology to create a digital platform around the free social networking platforms used by their target audience, the likelihood of overcoming their ultimate four-tier problem would be greatly improved.