More Nimble Together

The willingness of the Drupal community to support the needs of this project cannot be overlooked, either. Oomph has been able to leverage our team’s commitment to open source contributions to get other developers to add features to the modules they support. Without the give and take of the community and our commitment to give back, many modifications and customizations for this project would have been much more difficult. The team at Centarro, maintainers of the Commerce module, were fantastic to work with and we thank them.

We look forward to continuing to support Leica Geosystems and their product line worldwide. With a smooth upgrade path to Drupal 9 in 2020, the site is ready for the next big upgrade.

AskRI is a digital platform providing Rhode Island residents with free access to some of the top educational and research tools, along with links to many state resources. A collaboration among the state government and various libraries and agencies, AskRI is essentially a 24/7 help desk for Rhode Islanders.

The platform’s structure has three main approaches:

Fundamentally, it’s an incredible resource! But, as AskRI grew over time, it became increasingly difficult for users to find the information they needed — and harder for site managers to organize, update, and expand the content.

Aiming to make the platform more user-friendly all around, its owners opted for a comprehensive redesign with a few primary goals:

Through a quick Discovery phase, we uncovered a diverse user base with a broad range of needs. Our next challenge was to create an energetic brand identity and a more intuitive way to organize the platform.

Visual Branding

Digital Platform

These relatively simple changes brought powerful results, creating a more engaging and intuitive platform. The fresh branding celebrates inquisitiveness and interaction, while the redesigned content is much easier for users to navigate and for authors to organize and expand.

The AskRI team loved the new brand identity, which evokes curiosity with visual elements that represent thinking and asking questions. Two thought bubbles form the shape of Rhode Island for the logo, while images of inquisitive people are featured throughout the site. In addition, the new colors bring fresh energy to the brand while preserving a sense of trust and authority.

The redesign not only improved the content’s organization and accessibility, it also fosters a greater sense of interaction with platform users. Visual personas provide an intuitive starting point for exploration, backed up with curated resource lists. A new dropdown menu titled “Find Resources for You” speaks directly to target audiences, while a new “Explore Topics” section offers lists of state resources grouped by user needs (small business, health, families, etc.).

Finally, as the most interactive part of the platform, the redesigned FAQs section is now the “Ask a Librarian” page, where users can submit questions on any topic. The most common platform-related questions get published to the site as a list of answers that users can browse. Input from users will not only inform the kinds of content that goes on the site, but may also spur access to new tools and databases.

The Challenge

Execute on a digital platform strategy for a global private equity firm to create a centralized employee destination to support onboarding, create interpersonal connections between offices, and drive employee satisfaction.

The key components would be an employee directory complete with photos, bios, roles and organizational structure; News, events, and other communications made easily available and organized per location as well as across all locations; The firm’s investment portfolio shared through a dashboard view with all pertinent information including the team involved.

These components, and the expected tactical assets that an intranet provides, would help the firm deepen connections with and among employees at the firm, accelerate onboarding, and increase knowledge sharing.

The Approach

Supporting Multiple Intentions: Browsing vs. Working

An effective employee engagement platform, or intranet, needs to support two distinct modes — task mode and explore mode. In task mode, employees have access to intuitive navigation, quick page loading, and dynamic search or filtering while performing daily tasks. They get what they need fast and proceed with their day.

At the same time, a platform must also encourage and enable employees to explore company knowledge, receive company-wide communications, and connect with others. For this firm, the bulk of content available in explore mode revolves around the firm’s culture, with a special focus on philanthropic initiatives and recognition of key successes.

Both modes benefit from intuitive searching and filtering capabilities for team members, news, events, FAQs, and portfolio content. News and events can be browsed in a personalized way — what is happening at my location — or a global way — what is happening across the company. For every interaction within the platform, the mode was considered and influential of nearly all design decisions.

From a technical standpoint, the private equity firm needed to support security by hosting the intranet on their own network. This and the need to completely customize the experience for close alignment with their brand meant that no off-the-shelf pre-built intranet solution would work. We went with Drupal 8 to make this intranet scalable, secure, and tailor-made to an optimal employee experience.

The Results

The platform deployment came at a time when it was most needed, playing a crucial role for the firm during a global pandemic that kept employees at home. What was originally designed as a platform to deepen employee connections between offices quickly became the firm’s hub for connecting employees within an office. As many businesses are, the firm is actively re-evaluating its approach to the traditional office model, and the early success of the new platform indicates that it is likely to play an even larger role in the future.

The core Earthwatch experience happens outdoors in the form of an expedition — usually for about a week and far away from technology in locations like the Amazon Basin, Uganda, or the Great Barrier Reef. But before this in-person experience happens, an expedition volunteer encounters a dizzying array of digital touchpoints that can sow confusion and lead to distrust. Earthwatch needed “Experience Transformation.”

A fresh design approach that introduces new colors, beautiful illustrations, and captivating photography.

Expedition discovery, research, and booking was transformed into a modern e-commerce shopping experience.

Corporate social responsibility content architecture was overhauled with trust-building case studies and testimonials to drive an increase in inquiries.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) advocates on behalf of 91,000+ members — mostly doctors but some veterinary support staff as well. With roots as far back as 1863, their mission is to advance the science and practice of veterinary medicine and improve animal and human health. They are the most widely recognized member organization in the field.

The AVMA website is the main communications vehicle for the organization. But the framework was very out of date — the site was not mobile-friendly and some pages were downright broken. The brand was strong, but the delivery on screen was weak and the tools reflected poorly.

“Out of Home” (OHH) advertising is widely understood as billboards, transit stops, and street furniture. But OHH advertising is also place-based mobile advertising and digital messages that can react to the time of day and weather. These emerging avenues were some of the customer education messages that OUTFRONT Media, one of the top three outdoor advertising companies in the country, needed a new website to convey.

OHH was new to us, but we enjoy diving deep into new industries and absorbing information from all directions. While getting to know OUTFRONT Media during our initial explorations and discovery meetings, Oomph and Straightline Media were surprised to learn:

he previous market finder used “inside baseball” language — terms that people at OUTFRONT understand, but that the general populace does not. Markets were labeled by city and state with vague geographic terms like “non-metro”. It was not friendly to the DIY customer. We helped guide technical conversations around how a better flow might work and captured the journey in wireframes and external working examples.

The Market finder is an integral part of the customer journey, so we placed it in page content to support the education process. As a customer understands how OHH and OUTFRONT works, they are prompted to enter their location and get more direct information. As part of wireframes and design, the language was an important aspect to try out and sharpen. Vague button text like “Get Started” was replaced with stronger and more descriptive actions like “Start Building Your Campaign.”

OHH is a powerful mechanism to reach people even as consumers become blind to advertising in traditional media — a billboard or subway poster can’t be ad-blocked. One of the most powerful ways to tell this story is through data. OUTFRONT has a number of “Insights” but potential customers are less likely to seek this information out themselves. Instead, we made sure to include teasers along their journies that highlight the effectiveness of sample campaigns. These Insights provide powerful results with brands that visitors are familiar with.

The entire journey from discovery to wireframing, testing, and design was an exciting and challenging process that pushed both teams towards an excellent outcome. We hope that the clarity of the navigation, message, and visitor journey continues to get new eyeballs and customers.

The interface was designed to follow many conventions of online banking in order to leverage customers’ intuition and expectations, but the result is softer and less like a typical financial institution. The concept of MyFund is similar to online banking in that the customer can make a donation through an online portal from a predetermined balance. The differences are in the workflow; MyFund transactions occur both on and offline. All transactions are guaranteed to go to registered 501c3 organizations in good standing with the IRS, therefore, when a request is made to send money to an organization, the final check is cut by a person. A customer may cancel a transaction before it has been fully processed but the back-office may also cancel it if the organization is not compliant. These nuances needed to be clear in the interface and messaging.

All along the way, the wireframes and designs were verified with real people. At the early stages, wireframes and workflows were tested with online tools and an HTML prototype. This not only gave the development team a live example of a customer’s workflow, but it gave the entire team a clear picture of how the responsive site was going to work.

While the software was nearing completion and a beta launch, Oomph began work on a marketing site to promote the new web app. We were involved in writing the copy and crafting the story for prospective customers.

We scripted a series of videos to help explain how individual features worked, while one explainer video on the marketing site gave new customers a broad overview of why this platform is such a great idea. A list of primary features as well as some social proof in the form of personal testimonials help frame the platform as more than just a convenience — it can really help you make a difference in your community.

See the marketing site in action at MyFund.org.