Two complete directions. One content model underneath.
Rather than a single proposal defended in the abstract, this build presents two fully realised concepts running side by side over the same WordPress installation and the same structured content. Choosing between them is a design decision, not a rebuild.
The Long View
An instrument room and a reading room, alternating, with a day view and a night view of each. Built around a single idea: policy for children is measured in decades, so the interface is organised along an axis of time. A scroll-driven life-course scene, a filterable evidence register, a command palette, and reader controls for text size, contrast and motion.
Evidence in Motion
A warm editorial register on paper stock. Evidence presented as a living publication: serif headlines, generous type, a single continuous reading surface. Familiar to anyone who reads reports for a living, and reassuring to audiences who are wary of anything that looks like a technology product.
Where they genuinely differ.
| Dimension | Concept 01 — The Long View | Concept 02 — Evidence in Motion |
|---|---|---|
| Organising idea | Evidence along a life course: an axis of time, from before birth to adulthood. | Evidence as a living publication. |
| Register | Two surfaces that alternate, and a full day view and night view of both. | One warm editorial surface throughout. |
| Navigation | Mega panels driven by one nav model, plus a site-wide command palette on ⌘K. | Conventional header with section pages. |
| Signature interaction | A scroll-driven life-course scene that pins and advances through six stages. | Scroll-revealed editorial sequence. |
| Evidence discovery | One register across four content types, filterable by type, topic and audience at once. | Sectioned listings by content type. |
| Reader controls | Day / night, three text sizes, higher contrast and reduced motion, remembered per device. | System preferences honoured. |
| Tone | Precise and self-auditing — every practice states what it cannot do, next to what it can. | Considered, institutional, familiar. |
| Best suited to | Positioning PolicyWise as the organisation that can see across systems and across years. | Audiences who read reports and want the site to feel like one. |
The same WordPress installation, the same five structured content types — research, projects, initiatives, resources and people — the same shared topic and audience taxonomies, and the same staff-editable fields. Neither concept can affect the other’s styling: each dequeues the other entirely on its own pages, so a decision to proceed with one does not require unpicking the other.