The Frederiksberg Kommune’s (The Municipality of Frederiksberg) website needed to be updated and restructured. The design should communicate the Kommune’s green lines, in a modern design and the site should be more interesting, accessible and easy to use.
The Kommune chose Zupa to deliver the graphical design as well as a recommendation for the information architecture of the site. Pentia was chosen to carry out the Sitecore implementation. The design and information architecture was thoroughly described and visualized in wireframe mockups. Usability was tested by Snitker & Co before the wireframes were delivered to Pentia for development and Implementation.
The usability tests demonstrated that some of the original ideas for the new website did not match the real needs and usage patterns of the users. The wireframe mockups were changed and refined until they were well received by the test users. Following this the design and information architecture was accepted and delivered to Pentia.
Together with Pentia, the Kommune used the time necessary to define the acceptance criteria for the final solution. The acceptance criteria were used to match expectations and ensure a common agreement for what should be delivered.
By following this process it was not necessary to make changes to the solution following the development phase. If changes were to be made at this point they would demand far greater resources than the changes made in the design phase.
To offer an effective service to users, a large part of the front page was used for shortcuts to the most popular self-service services and to “life situation relevant” information – if one is moving, building, getting married etc. Businesses can find information directly on the front page, as the Kommune wants to ensure that 25% of the 45,000 that visit the site each month, enter on a business related errand.
As well as a new design, there are also a number of new features, such as the calendar delivered in cooperation with KultuNaut. The calendar gives users the opportunity to make sure they know what is happening in Frederiksberg. Pentia have integrated KultuNauts calendar with Sitecore.
The old search engine has been replaced by Google Mini. Google was chosen because the Kommune wanted to deliver a service that was well known.
Another function that was developed was to assist the users in navigating through the many pages by an automated A-Å index.
As well as the different types of newsletter that one can subscribe to, the new website offers a number of RSS feeds that cover categories defined by the webmaster.
To replace the old solution, content needed to be transferred from the old site to the new. During this process, it was necessary to consider the new information architecture. The conversion was carried out with a mixture of automatic data transfer and manual quality control. The process was completed without problem and the new website was launched on Tuesday the 22nd of April 2008.
- The website has run without problems ever since and has been very well received by the users.
- The major focus on agreeing the acceptance criteria for the solution up front, resulted in almost no need for changes or corrections after it went online.
- The solution was delivered on time, budget and with the agreed level of quality.