About the concept
A/Part of the Crowd is a microsite built to house stories of loneliness created by young people aged 18 to 25 across Australia. The project forms part of the ALIVE National Centre’s loneliness initiative, hosted at The University of Melbourne, and is supported by the Medibank Better Health Foundation.
The site is designed to be a space where young people can share their lived experience during major life transitions in their own words, and on their own terms. Submissions come in many forms – written reflections, poetry, artwork, audio or video – and are published in a way that is both accessible and validating.
More than a research output, the microsite is a place to read, reflect, and quietly connect through shared experience. Built through deep collaboration with lived experience advisors and researchers, it supports both peer connection and the broader aims of ALIVE’s national research into social connection and loneliness.
The challenge
The ALIVE team set out to create a digital platform that centred the voices of young people between 18 and 25, while maintaining a safe, supportive experience for contributors, moderators, and future visitors.
The platform needed to balance care and usability. Contributors needed the option to share their stories anonymously. Visitors needed intuitive ways to explore the content, by theme, life transition, or format. Researchers and moderators required a low-maintenance tool they could manage without technical support.
The project also needed to be delivered to a tight schedule. The microsite was due to be built and quality-assured by December 2025, with a public launch planned for 2026. Portable was engaged to scope, design, build, and hand over a platform that could meet these requirements, while remaining flexible and scalable into the future.
Our approach
Grounded in co-design, care, and technical clarity
We worked closely with ALIVE researchers and lived experience advisors throughout the project – listening, refining, and delivering in clear stages to meet the defined timeline and outcomes.
We moved through three key phases: discovery and branding, collaborative design, and development using a lightweight but robust technical stack.
Co-design and brand development
We began with a brand and user experience workshop that brought together the ALIVE team and their Lived Experience Advisory Group (LEAG). These sessions helped define how the site should feel and function for young people. The key takeaways from these early conversations included: playful, fresh, bold, inclusive, trustworthy, and engaging.
These ideas led to a visual identity that celebrates individuality and togetherness – a reminder that even in our differences, we share the same need to feel seen and connected. The brand direction embraced the beauty of being imperfectly human.
This was expressed through organic, expressive visuals:
- Irregular, fluid shapes that mirror the complexity of human experience
- Flexible use of size and space to reflect emotional nuance
- Plenty of white space to avoid visual overwhelm
- A refined yet clean typography to signal care
- A bright, rich colour palette that balances boldness with trustworthiness
This visual system gave us a toolkit that could speak directly to a young audience, while preserving the professional and ethical standards of ALIVE’s research work.
Anonymity, moderation and story categorisation were planned from the outset, ensuring the site could grow without compromising safety or intent.
See the beginnings of the brand elements in action on this Instagram post.
Design and prototyping
We designed a content-led structure that made it easy to explore stories by topic or transition, such as starting university or entering the workforce. Features like anonymous submission, story filtering, and visible support links were included in the early prototyping phase.
We also introduced non-intrusive ways for readers to engage with stories, such as a set of reactions that allow visitors to respond with prompts like "I can relate to this", "I’m grateful this was shared", and "I found this insightful".
All designs were built and reviewed in Figma. We ran ongoing design reviews with the ALIVE team to ensure the platform remained aligned with audience needs and research priorities.
Build and handover
We built the site using Webflow, which offered a high level of usability for content moderators and administrators at the University of Melbourne. Webflow’s CMS functionality also allowed for structured, scalable publishing of stories, tags and support resources. From a development perspective, Webflow enabled fast and efficient implementation of the site’s structure and components, which meant we could focus more time on refining custom features.
Where Webflow’s native capabilities ended, we extended them through smart integrations:
- Make was used for automation workflows and story form submissions
- Firebase powered story reactions
- Cloudinary handled media hosting of submitted images, audio and video
While the project required custom code to deliver certain features, Webflow’s strong interoperability made these enhancements possible without compromising performance. This tech stack gave us the flexibility to build a robust, scalable product within tight delivery parameters.
We handed over a fully operational CMS, a detailed moderation guide, and conducted quality assurance and support through to the end of January 2026.
The impact
A/Part of the Crowd is live!
A/Part of the Crowd is now live and quietly in use, with a public launch planned for April 2026. The platform provides a safe and thoughtful experience for people to read, reflect and – when ready – share. It also provides a scalable and sustainable infrastructure for ALIVE’s ongoing research.
For contributors, the site offers a way to share stories safely. For visitors, it provides quiet validation and connection. For researchers, it offers a tool they can maintain and grow without requiring technical support. And for partners like Medibank Better Health Foundation, it’s an example of lived experience-led innovation in mental health research.
This project demonstrates what can be achieved when technical delivery is shaped by the needs of people – especially those whose stories are often overlooked. For Portable, A/Part of the Crowd reflects our commitment to designing and building public digital infrastructure that’s usable, human, and built to last.
Follow along
Follow the project on instagram here. But more importantly, if you have teens and young people in your life, please consider sharing the platform with them. It could be the start of a meaningful conversation, or a needed outlet for them or their peers.
Team reflection
"Working on A/Part of the Crowd was incredibly exciting, but also challenging, since mental health is something I care deeply about. It pushed me to explore new approaches alongside a great team, and it was especially meaningful to be part of a project where design proved to be an essential tool in supporting emotional connection."
Sonia Ravasi, User Experience Designer
Portable project team
- Nicole Goodfellow, Senior Producer
- Sonia Ravasi, User Experience Designer
- Danielle Emond, Production Lead
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