Case Study
Sturgis Bank Intranet
Enqbator Helps Popular Michigan Community bank Improve its Intranet for Better Employee Communication
- Project
- acorn.sturgisbank.com
- Technologies
- Sitefinity
- Industry
- Financial
- Expertise
- UX Research
- UI Design
- Custom Development
- Security
The Background
Sturgis Bank and Trust, serving multiple communities in Southwest Michigan, prides itself on its values of honesty, excellence, and teamwork, to make banking easier for everyone in its community through personal and friendly service. To accomplish these goals, the employees of Sturgis needed an efficient way to access internal documents and information and needed an up-to-date intranet to facilitate these efforts.
The existing Sturgis Bank intranet was cluttered and very outdated - both visually and functionally. Employees relied on the intranet for crucial resources but were often frustrated by the difficulty in finding what they were looking for. In addition, there was a large amount of information and documents that were many years old and of no use anymore. This made it hard for employees to tell if certain documents, forms, and other content were still relevant or applicable for their needs.
The Goal
- New intranet built from the ground up
- Modern, flexible, and user-friendly design
- Enhance the mobile experience and streamline communication
- Robust security and data protection through modern best practices
- User-centric design and content strategy based on real user needs
The Challenge
Information on the Sturgis Bank intranet was not always organized effectively by each department but scattered throughout the site. And, with no functioning site search, employees would get frustrated trying to find the valuable information needed to perform their jobs effectively. The entire website and search functionality needed better organization, an improved design, an updated layout, and a more intuitive and easy-to-use navigation structure. Sturgis Banks’ main goal was to create a centralized place for all staff members across the company to quickly find the tools, forms, and other information necessary for their job duties. The intranet was also not compatible with all web browsers, so certain documents or pages of the site required employees to reopen these files or pages in a completely different browser to be viewed. Plus, the intranet was also not responsive across all devices.
Difficulties included
- Struggles navigating the website and locating content
- Dealing with an outdated and cluttered design; experiencing broken links
- Encountering work-reducing system downtime ; browser compatibility issues
- Inabilities to correctly organize or name files and documents
- Increased time spent searching for information
- Not being aware of important updates and buried content.>
1
UX Research
Custom UX surveys, interviews, personas, and testing were all aimed at assessing the needs, goals, and pain points of the portal's users to guide the project.
2
Content Strategy
Based on user survey data and content review, a strategy was created that put user needs and behavior at the forefront.
3
Data-Driven Design
A design centered on user experience and informed by real user data and behavior, while being flexible and modern.
The Solution
In order to identify the best possible solution for Sturgis Bank, detailed discussions were held with key stakeholders to solidify the requirements and further explore Sturgis’ goal for their Intranet. An extensive discovery process was completed to completely research every aspect of the existing intranet and finalize an effective plan to address these pain points and reach all of Sturgis’ goals as well as their user’s needs.
Working together with key personnel at Sturgis Bank, Enqbator’s discovery team performed a thorough audit of the existing intranet site.
Elements of the discovery process included:
- User Survey: Enqbator created a UX survey with the goal of assessing the needs, goals, and pain points of the Sturgis’ primary intranet users – its employees.
- Audit: A complete website audit was performed to identify all details and needs
- Walk Through: Demos of the existing Sturgis Bank intranet were given
- Feedback: User feedback from intranet superusers was explored and reviewed
- Interviews: Discovery meetings with key web team members were held
- Persona Development: Created personas for several key user groups to help ensure that all needs were addressed.
- Formative UX Testing: A small group of super users testing to guide early design decisions and uncover usability issues before launch.
Based on all survey results and the gathered requirements, a flexible design was developed to provide Sturgis admin users the structured freedom to customize each page according to their needs. This process included a revised sitemap, a better layout, and new content organization.
Some major features developed include:
- Document Library
- Policies & Procedures Module: This displays a list of policies and procedures documents and can be pulled into different department pages and filtered by tags to show the related department policies.
- Forms Module
- Products Module
- Quick Links Widget
- Cards Widget
- Site Search
Additional smaller features were implemented, like the ability to mark content with an “Updated” banner so that users know when important content has been updated. Frequently used documents or information like Bank Rates data was configured in a way to automatically pull in the latest version of the document or data. This helped content managers avoid having to frequently reupload a new document to the website every time the Bank Rates needed to be updated.
The Result
All efforts from the Sturgis and Enqbator teams resulted in a completely transformed visual design and greatly improved user experience. The newly installed CMS (Content Management System) now allows ease of content management and allows the intranet to be more easily and more efficiently maintained and updated.
Other improvements included:
- Site Search: Users are now able to search and find the information needed faster and more easily.
- Content Status: Users will now be able to see when certain content is updated.
- Efficient and Clean Design: Refined content and better layout resulting in less clutter.
- Department-Specific Content: Each department now has its own landing page with all related departmental forms, documents, policies, and procedures.
This project was brought to life using technologies designed to deliver optimal performance and user experience while adhering to specific requirements.
Intranet Portal
Built a brand-new internal portal from the ground up on a modern CMS - replacing an outdated system with a clean, user-friendly experience tailored to staff needs.
Azure Hosting Solution
Trusted and secure hosting designed and engineered for each unique solution.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
A fully-secure Single Sign On process to allow seamless access for all portal users.
Financial Data Integrations
Tie-ins to integrate and display important financial data information while maintaining a central place to make updates.
Workflow & Permissions
Using the power of Sitefinity CMS for admin user workflows and permissions.
Custom Modules
Custom build content modules designed for Sturgis' content, such as policies, procedures, and products that can be dynamically pulled into different pages.
Testimonials
What clients are saying.
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