Threespot

Mozilla Rally

Corporate Social Responsibility / Webby Winner

Threespot

Corporate Social Responsibility

Webby Winner

"The last few years have shown us how the internet can do more harm than good. We're now finally at a place where we can talk about what went wrong and how we can fix it." Mozilla Rally

Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: Using the internet comes with a price tag. We forfeit our personal data to tech giants for the privilege of using what should ultimately be a public good. That data is power; power that could be put to better use than just raising the stock price for a few select organizations. Rally enables users to share their data with cause-aligned researchers focused on holding major online services accountable for harmful, biased or misleading experiences.

Q: Tell us about your initial moodboard, wireframe, or prototype. How did things change throughout the process?

A: Rally can be tough to understand, as it is related to concepts like personal data collection and power in the tech industry. Our design process explored metaphors that could help communicate these concepts. An early mockup used a "klein bottle" to express the concept of open data. We eventually landed on a flag, to channel the idea of people uniting for a shared purpose. This metaphor extended into the illustration work you'll see on the site.

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: Rally began as an experimental product within Mozilla and had just received additional funding to secure a new brand and marketing website for launch. Rather than commit to a formal CMS, they opted to build a static site in order to have a flexible platform that could evolve alongside their product. This gave us the opportunity to design each page around its intended content, rather than work within a system of components and templates.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

To build trust with users, we knew that Rally had to embody respect and user agency. After a series of discussions, we realized these principles boiled down to how we treat consent. We decided to align the on-boarding process around Planned Parenthood's model for good consent; meaning consent that is freely-given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific. By modeling good consent, we could also help users expect more from online platforms.

Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this?

A: Throughout this project we used a combination of: Figma, Mozilla’s Protocol design system, Eleventy static-site framework, Mozilla’s Nunjucks templating language, Webpack, HTML, CSS (Sass), JS, Markdown, YAML, Sal.js scroll animation library, vanilla-tilt.js 3D tilt animation library and Flickity carousel.

Q: How did you balance your own creative ideas and technical capabilities with a fair representation of the client’s brand?

A: All elements of this project were crafted in close collaboration with the Mozilla team. Visual design, layout, interaction, copy and development were architected in tandem through a series of collaborative workshops to ensure that we were able to co-create a solution that allowed both us and Mozilla to fulfill our creative vision. This process reflected the platform's inherent promise of collective power and democratized decision-making.

Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations?

A: In order to ensure that users were informed and specific in their consent, we decided to focus on crafting a clear and easy-to-read privacy policy. Working with Mozilla's legal team, we leveraged visual communication and plain language to present a privacy policy that wasn't just walls of text and legalese, but was something that users could actually read. Our final version was just 539 words, compared to the average of 2,610 words.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: We all once believed in the promise of the internet as a tool that could create transparency, decentralize power and open doors to new thoughts, ideas and people. But the last few years have shown us how the internet can do more harm than good. We're now finally at a place where we can talk about what went wrong and how we can fix it. Rally is the first step in showing how we can design systems that restore the promise we once all believed in.