It Is Real Violence
Millions of women experience technology-facilitated gender-based violence, online harassment and abuse that cause real, lasting harm. Too many dismiss it as just words on a screen. RNW Media, a Netherlands-based organisation working at the intersection of digital rights and social change, decided to challenge that dismissal directly and needed a campaign platform to carry it.
Challenge
The campaign was built around the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, a fixed, high-stakes window with no room to iterate after launch. Heavy topics lose people fast, and this one is heavier than most. A woman who has experienced TFGBV herself, deciding whether this platform is a safe place to be seen or just another site talking about her without her. Someone who has never thought about the issue before, scrolling past unless something stops them. The design had to make TFGBV feel accessible and urgent at once, reaching a global, multicultural audience without diluting the message or overwhelming the people it was trying to reach.
My Roles
I owned this project end to end as the sole Product Designer, from research and benchmarking through to UI handoff. I worked alongside the development team and managed the design relationship with RNW Media's team as the primary client contact.
Process
I started by benchmarking similar social campaigns to understand what actually drives participation, what visual languages invite people in versus what keeps them at arm's length. I developed user personas to ground design decisions in real audience contexts, including women from different regions who experience TFGBV differently and engage with digital content differently. That research shaped every decision that followed, from the interactive structure to the visual tone. The goal was to lower the barrier to participation without lowering the weight of the subject. Once the direction was clear, full UI design, development, QA, launch, all within the campaign timeline.
Key Decision
A Deliberately Bold Visual Language On a Difficult Topic
Most campaigns about gender-based violence lean on dark, heavy imagery. The risk is that the people who most need the message disengage before they reach it. So I chose a vibrant, high-contrast visual direction instead, not to minimise the issue, but to make the platform feel like a space for action rather than grief. Energy pulls participation. Heaviness pushes people away.
Survivor Stories and Community Voices As The Primary Content Layer
Educational content about TFGBV already exists everywhere. What actually drives participation is recognition, seeing your own experience reflected back. So I centered real survivor stories and community voices as the editorial backbone, giving visitors a reason to contribute their own perspective, which is exactly what the participation mechanic needed.
Built To Outlast The 16-Day Campaign Window
A microsite that dies after its campaign period wastes the participation it collected and loses the audience it built. So I designed the platform to stay active past the campaign, keeping participation data live for RNW Media's ongoing reporting and giving future activations an existing base to build from instead of starting at zero.
Validation
The platform went through a testing round before the 16-day campaign launch, covering both usability and content flow, critical for a platform reaching a global, multilingual audience on a sensitive topic, where a confusing experience or a wrong tone would directly cost participation.
Solution
A fully interactive campaign microsite featuring real survivor stories, a community safe-space gallery, an interactive TFGBV guide available for download, and a participation mechanic inviting global visitors to share their own experiences and perspectives. Built to remain active beyond the campaign window, keeping data and content available for RNW Media's continued advocacy work.
Result
- 3,000+ participants from different countries shared experiences and perspectives on TFGBV through the platform during and after the 16-day campaign
- Global reach across regions, with participation from audiences across Europe, Africa, and Asia
- Platform designed to outlast the campaign and continue serving RNW Media's advocacy reporting beyond the initial activation
- The only project in this portfolio built for social impact rather than commercial outcomes, designed for a Netherlands-based NGO working on digital rights at a global scale
SUSHIRO