Responses by Miles Aylward, full-stack developer; Molly Douglas, creative director; and Dani Meluski-Jimenez, creative director, Grow.

Background: Sextortion is one of the biggest risks kids and teens face online, but most parents don’t understand how it happens. Parents’ lack of awareness means they aren’t able to spot the warning signs or realize how easily this could happen to any kid, even their own. Research shows that simply learning more about the issue and having a conversation with their children could make a big difference. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) wanted our help in spreading awareness about this rising threat in a way that would both inform parents about the issue and inspire them to spread the word within their communities.

Design core: In order for parents to really understand the risk to their children, we knew we needed to do more than simply educate on what sextortion looks like; we also needed to build empathy for what sextortion feels like for victims. This led us to the idea of an interactive film that places parents directly into the experience of a kid caught in a sextortion scheme, designed to capture the visceral, anxiety-inducing panic of suddenly finding yourself trapped with no way out. Even though the audience has an interactive role to play, we intentionally kept the design system minimal so users would stay deeply immersed in the story all the way through.

Challenges: We wanted to make sure we got the tone right since the subject matter was difficult but so important. Everything we did, from the storyline to the text exchanges featured on screen, was informed by real transcripts from cases of sextortion and advised by the experts at NCMEC on how the crime most typically unfolds. Our goal was to portray the events as accurately as possible to educate parents and inspire them to help spread the word.

Navigation structure: Parents are presented with choices that help them understand why their children make the decisions they do and how they eventually run out of options for handling it on their own. Ultimately, the navigation is all about guiding parents to “walk in their kids’ shoes,” creating a poignant experience of how scary it is to be a child trapped in a very adult problem.

Special technical features: Every aspect of the site was designed to work together to create the most immersive experience possible, through film, interactivity, sound and visual effects. An advanced GSAP timeline helped us make sure all moments, sound effects and visual effects are aligned with the video and timed perfectly to hit the emotional beats of the story. As the tension escalates, we introduce custom WebGL effects that accentuate the first-person perspective and underscore the intense anxiety of what the victim is going through.