Through Their Eyes Website
A multimedia project inside a jail to build support for jail reform.
2018 – 2019 · VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE · MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION / WEB DESIGN / CONTENT STRATEGY
Through Their Eyes is a first-person multimedia storytelling project that features testimonials from incarcerated people and corrections officers from a Massachusetts jail about their experiences with prison reform.
The Scope of Work
As creative associate in Vera’s Restoring Promise initiative, I worked with the research team to collect stories from one of Vera's reformed jail units called P.A.C.T.—People Achieving Change Together—at the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction in Billerica, Massachusetts, and design an interactive website that allows users to explore the stories. The unit is unique because traditional punitive prisons policies are suspended in favor of trauma-informed, harm-reduction, restorative justice approaches, and the project aimed to provide an immersive experience into this one-of-a-kind reform experiment. This project was a first for Vera and was produced to commemorate the first year anniversary of the unit, which took place in February 2019.
Through Their Eyes primarily aimed to bring a text publication, Cultivating Change, with research findings about the same unit to life in a way that was compelling, interactive, and accessible to the average public. It became clear that, while the text publication spoke to the findings and efficacy of the unit geared toward an audience of system stakeholders, that there was a need to distill this information for the general public in a way that centered the testimonials of the people in the unit, rather than the numbers and data. And, so the interactive website served as a digital human-interest companion to the research publication. In the spirit of collaboration, we also wanted to enable incarcerated people, who are often censored, to tell their stories their own way about systemic change. And, who better to argue for disrupting the culture of incarceration than the very people who are directly impacted. They're the experts after all.
As a result, I worked with researchers to conceptualize this project, developed the content strategy around it, went to the field inside a jail to source stories, led a field production team of three to conduct workshops with formerly incarcerated people and corrections officers on storytelling and multimedia production, and worked with a design studio to wireframe and build it into an interactive digital hub. In addition to mobilizing the public around prison reform, the project was also used as an innovative and immersive “grant report” for current donors and prospective major donors so that they can be witness to the change they are funding and that we would like them to fund.
My Role
Project Management
Multimedia Production
Creative Direction
Content Strategy
Copy Writing & Editing
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Team
Jarrod Mayes, UI Designer, Hyperakt Studio
Dylan Viola, Developer, Hyperakt Studio
Michael Mehler, Associate Producer, Vera Institute
Selma Djokovic, Associate Producer, Vera Institute
One of the incarcerated young adults in the P.A.C.T. unit, “Justice,” making an audio recording for Through Their Eyes after workshopping his story.One of the incarcerated lifers who are called “mentors” in the unit films himself with a correctional officer explaining the orientation packet they developed together for young adults who newly join the rehabilitative unit, and the different incentive programs they designed, such as a “currency system” that teaches incarcerated young adults the fundamentals of managing finances through simulated responsibilities so that they are prepared for when they are released.A 360 DIGITAL PARTICIPATORY STORYTELLING EXPERIENCE
I spent three days wiah the incarcerated people and corrections officers in the P.A.C.T. unit getting to know them and helping them tell their story about their experiences in the unit. Participation in this project was completely voluntary. I provided incarcerated people and corrections staff with digital cameras, camcorders, disposable film cameras, audio recorders, and paper (for written essays) to be able to tell their story however they wished. I held brainstorming and multimedia production workshops so each person could shape their story their own way using participatory production methods. The core idea here was to shift power to incarcerated people so they could reclaim their stories. Each person has their own dedicated tile on the final website with the videos, photos, audio files, and/or written content that they themselves produced.
All of the content has been edited slightly or not at all to maintain the integrity of their story. We had to toke steps to protect the identities of incarcerated people who participated in this project with their consent. Because it is a jail, many people who participated were still awaiting trial, and others didn't want their faces to be shown. Considering these constraints, and in order to be inclusive of everyone in the unit, we had to protect their identities in producing this project. However, the stories they tell are extremely powerful.
ENGAGING INTERACTIVE DESIGN
I worked with the award-winning design studio, Hyperakt, based in Brooklyn, NY to design an engaging interface for Through their Eyes. I created lo-fi and medium-fi wireframes, which Hyperakt refined and developed. The goal was to have this platform serve as a hub for all the multimedia stories I had collected in the field and to give users freedom to explore which ever profiles they wanted. What should have been a 6 month long project, Through Their Eyes was produced in four months. I worked very closely with Hyperakt to realize my vision to create a digital experience unlike anything the Vera Institute of Justice has ever produced—a multimedia-first publication that centered human stories.
I proposed a grid of profiles to add a striking visual experience that would encourage users to explore and direct their own experience. I wanted to inform users of the positive impact of the P.A.C.T. unit without having to subject them to a long onboarding process before reaching the story grid. Understanding that users prefer immediacy and to explore on their own, we included in the mix colored tiles with quotes and facts about the unit to provide more context to users as they are actively exploring, without interrupting their experience. The result was an even more dynamic experience.
