EUREKA network

There were two main goals for this project:

• Providing a better user experience for EUREKA’s online visitors by simplifying its site architecture;
• Allowing the EUREKA communication department to leverage its online tools with minimal technical intervention.

The final requirement was the ability to publish information across two different domains (EUREKA and Eurostars) from the same editorial backend.

The technical requirements for the of revamp of both the EUREKA and Eurostars websites did not differ significantly. From the technological point of view, Eurostars are more or less a replica of the the EUREKA system with a unique front-end.

User-friendly and responsive web design

The design requirements for the new EUREKA website were very straightforward. The new web design was to be green (EUREKA's theme), modern and user-friendly for all types of mobile devices. Therefore, our design team had almost free rein to experiment and test various ideas. In the end, the client chose a simple yet modern design combining the EUREKA green with a lot of white background colour.

At the beginning of the design stage our team created a comprehensive Style Guide defining a standard set of colours, logos, icons, fonts, buttons, links etc. ready to be used by our front-end developers.

To comply with the requirements of the project, our team created a custom theme built off Bootstrap. The design was made responsive in order to serve users accessing the website through various mobile devices.

Information architecture

As the information architecture (IA) of the old EUREKA website became obsolete, providing the new website with a comprehensive and cohesive IA was the biggest challenge of the project. At the beginning of the project, a decision was made to break the existing IA down into shared categories and implement a more concise structure for the future based on content types and taxonomies. The new concept for the IA was delivered with the aid of UXPin, a UX Design Platform, and developed as an interactive prototype before the actual development phase. This allowed for easy feedback from the client and quick iterations from our team.
The current IA on the EUREKA website has been tidied up and rearranged. The information is now clearly categorised and, by implementing a very intuitive 4-step menu for a quick access to EUREKA project funding (see screenshots), the EUREKA's core value - supporting innovative R&D projects - is highlighted.

Synergy

In order to ensure a high level of synergy between the EUREKA and Eurostars websites, Domain Access was installed. This way, both websites could be implemented as separate entities having individual web addresses, connected, however, by one Drupal installation and a single admin panel. Data, such as users, content and configurations, could be shared across both websites.

Content management

It was very important for EUREKA’s communication department to be able to manage content after the final release independently. To do so, a site manager role (both for EUREKA and Eurostars websites) was created and appropriate permissions assigned. Now, EUREKA editors can easily manage content in their site manager area, which by bypassing the intervention of the IT team, proved to be very time- and cost-efficient.

Project management

Agile Scrum was chosen as a suitable approach to manage the medium-sized EUREKA project. Being based on iterative processes, Scrum created space for frequent meetings within the team as well as between the team leader (Scrum Master) and the Client (Product Owner). In total, the project consisted of 5 Sprints and was rounded up by a Kanban cycle, which allowed the team to concentrate on the remaining fixes and meet the deadline requirements on time.

Project outcome

The revamp of the EUREKA and Eurostars websites has had a positive impact on several project areas.

In terms of the client's editorial workflow, the publication of content has currently become much easier allowing the EUREKA and Eurostars editors to publish content on both websites simultaneously. What required manual copying before, has now become an automated task thanks to Domain Access.

In terms of the new web design, it has had a tremendous impact on the quality of user experience of both websites. The average bounce rate has been reduced by 20% and the average session duration extended by more than one-third.

Finally, the work our team performed on the SEO (on-site) front has helped to elevate the average number of visits by more than 75% leading to an average increase of sessions by more than 100% in comparison to the old websites.