Ben Boyle lives here!

Go fish!

We talk about fishing a bit at work — we did refresh the website for purchasing stocked impoundment permits (SIPS, they are for recreational fishing in Queensland dams) early in the year. Isn't that form pretty!?

In July, I started some wireframes for a new potential website: an online fishing diary. At the moment, recreational fishers can opt in to the diary scheme and keep a logbook of species they catch. These volunteers contribute meaningfully to fisheries management, as I understand it. Nice work citizens! We had hopes this would be an interesting new service. It has some relationship to the SIPS of course, but even more potential as a citizen engagement (or e-engagement, e-government, social networking etc.) For anglers. Smart Service is big into egovernment and engagement, particularly on the GetInvolved website. Yes the online fishing diary seemed ideal.

Here's some of the mockups, showcasing the initial exploration I began around collecting the diary entries:

A bit like surveys, but trying to really engage, you know? Rather than simply recording data, making it a bit more fun and competitive, maybe even educational. Does data have to be dry and dull? Can you see people that love fishing enjoying typing data into websites? Let's take a leaf from gaming — people love stats and achievements!

Sadly it was canned. Boo hiss! I've been meaning to write this eulogy since then.

Alas ye online fishing diary, put aside before you truly had a chance to shine.

Labels: design, government, UX, web, work