About

Milton Keynes hosts the UK’s very first ‘Safety Centre’ – a place known as ‘Hazard Alley,’ which is a purpose-built interactive education centre for children. The centre is the result of collaboration between Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service and Thames Valley Police, and creates a partnership between statutory organisations, local government and health authorities, and the private sector. Thousands of children visit the centre each year.

When they came to us to see how New Media could help them, they knew they needed to appeal to a wide range of users – teachers, students, potential visitors, safety professionals, and the general public. The website was meant to help these users focus on activities before and after a centre visit, to make the visit as effective as possible.

Initially, we produced some fun, short, interactive media elements (e.g., Flash games) to help focus the kids before the visit, and downloadable paper-based resources (e.g., PDF worksheets) to help the teachers, parents, and kids follow up after the visit.

We decided on a table-based layout using their distinctive colour scheme. Basic information, like how to get there, and detailed help for teachers linking matters of safety to the UK National Curriculum, all had to be included.

Each of the 12 sections that made up ‘Hazard Alley’ (the ‘lifelike scenarios’ part of the Centre) was featured in the main section of the site. Each contained a short description, photograph, and relevant curriculum notes. Teachers could also download PDF worksheets that they could then print. Many of the sections also contained a link to an interactive Flash program aimed at the kids, specially created to reinforce the particular safety messages for that section.

We used PHP to create a custom ‘guest/comment book,’ with entries that could be moderated by Safety Centre staff before going live.