The City of Subiaco’s new intranet - The Hive - is a great example of how great design and attention to detail can boost functionality and user engagement in a local government organisation.

Website / Government

Case Study

The recently completed intranet at the City of Subiaco - The Hive - is a fantastic example of how we were able to work closely with a local government client to produce a well designed, visually appealing, user friendly and engaging intranet that met their specific needs.

In particular, they wanted a slick and functional new internal website that would help boost engagement and aid positive interaction between staff spread across multiple worksites.

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The Challenge

Given the large number of users that would be accessing the intranet, we had to focus a lot of our design energy on creating a very user friendly, intuitive and functional interface.

A further challenge was striking the right balance between functionality and design to create a dynamic, captivating end product that felt truly up-to-date while delivering the desired outcomes of increased functionality and staff engagement.

A relatively straight forward build for our gun development team, one of the biggest challenges with this project came in the testing phase. The active directory (AD) on the test site was different to the live one, so it needed to be fully re-tested once it had moved to the live server and connected to the true AD account.

The Solution

To achieve the results the client was looking for we started from scratch and designed a new intranet with fresh, modern, responsive design that incorporated the user friendly functionality that they were looking for. Including personalised aspects - having the system greet people by using their name for example - also helped to add a more contemporary feel.

The creation of a staff chat module allowed staff to connect, interact and bond over a range of work and non-work related topics.

The re-testing phase once the site was connected to the true AD account was made even more challenging by the fact that a government organisation like the City of Subiaco has lots of different staff roles. This meant that extra testing was required to make doubly sure that the system worked properly and catered for staff with differing roles and access levels.

The Hive: City of Subiaco’s New Intranet The Hive: City of Subiaco’s New Intranet
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The Results

We’re happy to report that The Hive has been a smashing success. We might even go so far as to say that everyone at the City of Subiaco is ‘buzzing’ about it!

Initially very happy with the visually appealing design and intuitive functionality, they have had some great feedback from users and also experienced an increase in staff engagement.

According to the City of Subiaco:

“So far we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from our staff who love the colours and vibrancy of the new site.

The staff chat module is being used and we’re looking forward to watching this grow and add to employee engagement.

Staff have given positive feedback on the the modern look, use of images and the search functionality.

We found Alyka met the design brief really well and were open to feedback to get the look and feel right.”

A lengthy, detailed project that involved lots of collaboration, we were able to work well with the City of Subiaco to deliver them the slick, modern, functional and engaging intranet that they were looking for.