In June 2005 the Ministry of Health’s National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign 2005 committee approached Temasek InfoTech School to explore the possibility of getting students involved in the design and development of a website for their campaign. This campaign was launched on 9 Sep by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the website was to be one of the many publicity tools used to promote healthy lifestyle among Singaporeans.

Final year student, Benjamin Tan Zhi Qin, from the Diploma in Internet Computing was selected for this project. He proposed a few designs for the committee to select from. After the design was selected, he developed the navigation structure, icons, and colour scheme. Using input and feedback from the committee, Benjamin created a website that is both attractive and highly informative.

Benjamin found that the experience of developing the National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign (NHLC) 2005 website was both stressful and challenging. Even though he had been working as a freelance web developer for many companies, the requirements for NHLC were quite different. He learnt that when creating websites for a government organization there are stricter guidelines to follow. Benjamin had to familiarize himself with a set of standard rules and design layout. Government websites tend to be more informative, therefore one needs to consider these limitations when conceptualizing the design and layout.

Through this experience, Benjamin found that he had learnt to be more humble, accept ideas and suggestions, follow instructions, work independently and be more responsible for his work. Well done, Benjamin!

You can access National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign (NHLC) 2005 website at
http://www.healthylife.org.sg/campaign_activities.htm