Case: SOMO
SOMO.nl: responding to current events quickly and effectively.
SOMO is an independent, not-for-profit research -and network organisation. Since 1973 SOMO does extensive research on multinational corporations and the consequences of their activities for people and the environment worldwide.
The SOMO website presents this research and a wealth of other vital information. Civil societies, journalists and policymakers can easily access information packages that apply specifically to them. A user-friendly backend enables the SOMO researchers to respond quickly and effectively to current events. With a few clicks, editors can launch a new dossier or highlight an existing one. Obviously, the website is fully responsive and suitable for any device.
Agile proces
Along with various stakeholders of SOMO, we started the ‘Scrum’ project with a so-called Sprint 0. In Sprint 0 we determined the concept, agreed on the scope of the project and determined a Minimum Design up Front. In a series of intensive sessions, we formed target audiences into personas and scenarios. We then transformed these scenarios into so-called user stories. That way, we determined upon the backlog of the project together. In the three short sprints that followed, we delivered the MVP (minimum viable product).
“SOMO wants to provide civil society with the knowledge to defy the economic forces that stand in the way of a sustainable and equitable world. To unlock this knowledge, we needed a new website. Level Level helped us to define our core pages. Not the homepage, but the publication and overview pages covering our main topics are central. pages and browse pages on our main issues are central. A very refreshing way of looking at a website. Visitors can now easily search on topics they find interesting and are presented with possibilities to get into contact for more information. Research and knowledge is presented in a more inspiring and visually appealing way. Due to the wide variety of content types, our knowledge become flexible in its form, media and resources. We were surprised by the ability of Level Level to understand our organization and use this understanding in their design. We are very proud of the result. “
Where visitors and publishers meet
A high-quality website balances out the goals of the owner and the goals of the visitor. To find out where goals would overlap, we investigated the goals of both parties. For both parties ‘information’ turned out to be the key; providing information and accessing information. From here we defined content types to structure information and how to present this in a valuable way to the end-user.
“Together with the team of SOMO, we have analyzed all the information available and made decisions about the structure of the website. We compared key actions and goals of SOMO and its website users. Where goals overlapped we created so-called core-pages. These are the pages that address both the needs of the organization and it’s website visitors. This formed the basis to start designing. Because the core pages were the most important the homepage was one of the last pages we designed.”
“This was not the regular kind of imprt. We had to retrieve the content structure, scrape data and assets, restructure it and import it while setting new relationships. Quite a challenge that kept me busy for some time.”
Look & Feel
SOMO.nl is about presenting content in a powerful way. When a picture is important we made the image the most prominent feature, when sharing an opinion we focus on the author and when a research paper or piece of text should have the focus made sure to remove distraction. This results in a dynamic design which had to be balanced by providing a clean navigation.
Challenges we tackled
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