As a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, it is impossible to ignore the heavy traffic that fills every street. Being one of the largest cities designed for the commuting American, getting from one place to another can be a nightmare. Every day, adults sit in traffic on their way to work and children sit in traffic on their way to school. The wasted time not only reduced productivity, but it also pollutes the air with harmful chemicals and greenhouse gasses. That is where the Clean Air Campaign comes in. The main objectives of the Clean Air Campaign are to improve Atlanta’s air quality and to reduce traffic congestion. That being said, the Clean Air Campaign does not just service Atlanta; they actually work everywhere in the state of Georgia, but it can be difficult to get their message to everyone in Georgia, especially considering the transportation problems that they are trying to solve. That is where CleanAirCampaign.org, the Clean Air Campaign website, comes in. CleanAirCampaign.org makes it easy for Georgia residents to reduce traffic and increase air quality by providing incentives to use efficient modes of transportation through its friendly user interface.
When a user opens their web browser and loads CleanAirCampaign.org, they are presented with four large colored buttons. The green button, titled Your Commute, takes the user to a page that helps them improve their daily commute and save money in the process. The orange button, Your Workplace, provides different options for Georgian businesses and employees who want to improve commuting. The yellow button, Your Schools, has tools to find clean air schools and lessons, and the blue button, your air quality and transportation, has scientific information on air quality and its effects on your health and Georgia’s economy. The buttons are large and colorful, and they are strategically positioned so that viewers naturally look at them first. Once a user clicks the button they want, all the relevant information is laid out right in front of them. With only a few clicks, the user can get to one of the many articles on improving the air quality in Georgia or finding a carpool partner and saving money.
The website’s Commuter Rewards page, titled “Earn Cash. Win Prizes,” has three different options for anyone in Georgia to reduce traffic congestion, and it offers monetary rewards for doing so. The hyperlink to the page is visible on every part of the website, making it easy to get to and very likely that it will be read. The page proudly displays “More than 85,000 people have joined the Commuter Rewards. Be part of it.” This impressive statistic further emphasizes how easy it is to get started making money by changing one’s primary mode of transportation through the Clean Air Campaign. Personally, I find that I am much more willing to go along with commitments like Cash for Commuters, where commuters are given $3 for each day that they don’t use a car to do their daily traveling tasks, when I know that many others have done so successfully. The fact that the website displays this without me even having to try to look it up makes it much easier to understand everything. Hopefully the different monetary incentives make it more likely that the user will try to make a difference in their community.
There are also video presentations for three of the original color-coded sections. Each video summarizes the textual content of each section in a video format. The Commuters video discusses commute alternatives that can help save time and money that the Clean Air Campaign will pay Georgia residents to do. The Employers video offers many programs that employers can take advantage of to help employees getting to work and to increase productivity on the job. The Schools video talks about a number of health risks associated with frequent car transportation near schools and child daycares. Many users may prefer videos over reading. Personally, I prefer watching the videos, as they combine video, audio, and text into a more concise presentation that I find easier to understand.
Aside from the easy navigability that I’ve already discussed, they also provide some key features that are well known by web designers to improve the efficiency and ease of use of a website. The placement of the main navigation bar in the top and centered, the search bar in the upper right corner, the social network icons grouped up in an area where they will surely be seen. The website is solidly built and can even be fun to use. Overall, CleanAirCampaign.org does an excellent job of communicating their information, statistics, and programs in a way that is easy to understand.
Works Cited
CleanAirCampaign.org. The Clean Air Campaign, 2011. Web. October 13, 2011.
Profiling Atlanta's Transportation 