Case Study Verizon: site usability, sharing, and uniformization
Verizon’s new product marketing organization was tasked with new product development, sharing, and market launching. They were accustomed to working with their design firms to design unique sites for each product, and sites were hard coded to implement this design, a process that lead to a longer than desired site launch and update time.
Project Overview
To complete the Verizon project, Isovera worked closely with Acquia, as well as design partner Maark. The goal of this project was to decrease site production-to-market time, and increase site usability on the end of the client, specifically the creation of new sites and pre-production site sharing security. During the production of the platform, two major challenges included an urgent need for new sites to be released rapidly to support new products and services, and that previous work and sites had been hard coded, meaning that they were programmed in a manner that the code could not be easily changed.
Technical Solutions
Spin up a site with one click
Initially, the process of creating a new site for Verizon product marketing was taking weeks or even months, so one of the key tasks that Isovera worked on was expediting the website creation process. To expedite the amount of time a new website took to create, Isovera developed an “install profile” using Acquia Cloud Site Factory, which enabled the client to create a new site with the click of a button. In addition to an install profile, the updated site features site templates that can be built out with common content and features that can be used in multiple sites. The standardization of the templates means that site time to market can be significantly reduced from weeks or months to a day.
Easy design and content creation for non-developers
Another key area that Isovera worked on was website design and content creation for non-developers, as previously, non-developers were unable to make new sites for new products. To address this usability issue, Isovera created templates to enable non-developers to create new sites. By working closely with Maark, Isovera was able to design reusable components that the platform would offer to site builders. The reusable components not only decreased the time it took to launch new sites, but also enabled site builders to use the predefined content modules as a template of how to create a new site. By giving site builders predefined reusable templates of content modules, site builders no longer need to be code writers; they can simply make changes in the web interface through dragging and dropping, or through the click of a mouse. In addition to creating reusable component templates, a library was developed for the components that can be used to make new layout combinations, resulting in endless possibilities for potential content layouts for site builders to use.
Site-sharing security & seamless integration
The ability to share pre-production sites between Verizon and its sales and business partners without needing multiple rounds of password protection is another aspect of the project that Isovera worked on. Prior to the website upgrade, if a site was shared with partners, multiple mediums and password requirements existed, making site-sharing a tedious experience. To streamline the sharing process, Isovera was able to integrate Drupal 8 with the Verizon dashboard. The integration enabled Verizon partners to log into the Verizon dashboard and access pre-production websites from the dashboard without further rounds of authentication required, resulting in a simple and seamless transition between sites.
This article was originally posted on our Isovera Projects page.
