UNICEF

Wrapping up UNICEF’s global data app

Image of the 'How Many Children' app homepage displayed on a desktop PC. The image is mostly white, with blue accents, and there is an image of five Black babies, some sitting, one standing) in nappies on the right hand side of the screen.

Project overview

Alongside our work on UNICEF’s adolescent data portal, we also took on the exciting project of developing an app that pulled data from UNICEF’s main data website, specifically to answer questions around global childhood data, to create their How Many site, another sub-site of their main website.

As the world’s leading source of data on children, UNICEF’s data set is used by over 3 million people globally. It was an honor to help them create an app that feeds this data into the new site, making it easier to access the specific data sets needed by those working to improve children’s lives.

Features

  • Creation of a new flexible block (React wrapper)
  • CSS to match design guidelines
  • Custom post type

0.17g

CO2 per homepage view

95%

Homepage Lighthouse Performance Score

0.16s

Page load time

Creation of a new flexible block (React Wrapper)

We built UNICEF’s new How many sub-site, by creating a specific Gutenberg block, which embeds their React based (AI/machine learning powered) app.

This app can recognise text input and identify keywords and patterns, including topic, indicator and country. These keywords give the app the information it needs to know where to extract the relevant data from UNICEF’s core database, DataWarehouse. 

This then allows the app to respond to a wide range of variables that could be added to the question ‘How many children..?’ in the search bar.

CSS to match core design

To ensure consistency of the look and feel across all UNICEF sites, we also created CSS for the react app to match global UNICEF design guidelines.

Custom post type

For the Frequently asked questions (FAQ) page – which makes it easier than ever for researchers to quickly find answers to the most commonly sought after data – we created a custom post type, which points the embedded app to each specific question on this list.

Two images side by side. To the left is the homepage, and on the right is an image of the FAQs page of the new website (which has no images). Both are displayed on mobile devices (tablets).

Making UNICEF’s data more accessible

The development of this app is part of our ongoing work with the UNICEF Data team, which began with their main data website, and which we are continuing across several of the specific data profiles.

We’re proud of our continuous improvement work across the UNICEF data sites, which we are refining to create a smoother user experience across the board, refining accessibility to the highest standards, all while keeping the globally recognisable UNICEF brand experience.