Visual Impact and Excellent UX for High Stakes Objectives

Marin County Health and Human Services

Client Info

California’s County of Marin, occupies a unique corner of the world. North of San Francisco, and directly across the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin County encompasses some of the most scenic and storied sites in the United States -- Muir Woods, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed civic center, and the 1855 Point Bonita Lighthouse, to name just a few. With a mission to promote and protect the health, well being, self-sufficiency, and safety of all people in Marin County, the Department of Health and Human Services provides a depth and breadth of resources and support to a highly diverse community of close to 260,000 full-time residents. Health and Human Services stands as the largest department within Marin County, with more than 700 employees and 40 programs devoted to serving the community from 12 locations.

Industry

State & Local Government

Top challenge

Due to the rapid spread of the virus and the demand for fast access to information, speed was a critical issue for the redesign of the coronavirus information site.

The main page of the site that displayed key stats needed to be launched immediately, and could not be held up as the remaining pages were being designed.

Content editors needed to be able update the data and information on the site every day, along with the option of adding new content blocks or making revisions to pages.

The types of questions that users were asking was certain to evolve as the new information became available.

Top solution

Use of the Emulsify component-based design system greatly enhanced efficiencies in the design and launch of the new site. The selection of Pantheon as the hosting partner also helped in accelerating the timeframe from development to launch.

An iterative design and launch process that leveraged the Drupal Switch Page Theme Module, enabled the home page to launch first, followed by subsequent pages, based on a prioritized schedule.

The Drupal Paragraphs module ensured non technical editors were easily guided through powerful content editing capabilities.

Leveraging Drupal Search API and Draggable Views, content editors were able to determine which questions on the FAQ page were the most relevant to users and revise the page accordingly.

We now have the advantage of an Open Source CMS that is aligned with the worldwide Drupal Community. The result is big benefits. Taking all factors into account, we estimate that the annual cost savings will exceed $100,000.

Quazi Hashmi

Program Manager, County of Orange, California

Learn more about how we got there

A Tightly Orchestrated Migration Plan

The aggressive schedule and multiple moving parts associated with the migration of 41 distinct county sites into a cohesive whole called for a finely tuned plan that was closely adhered to throughout every phase of the carefully orchestrated, 18-month migration. The project was divided into 12, six-week waves, each with a different sets of site owners. Every one of the 12 phases began with a discovery session and included weekly meetings, multiple UAT checkpoints, extensive documentation, and training.

No-Code, Drag-And-Drop Content Editing

Provus, which is Promet’s newly launched component-based design system, proved to be a defining factor in the success of the project -- driving a high degree of development efficiency, while empowering site owners and content editors with the ability with access to a robust library of content editing components.With Provus, the keys for managing the site have essentially been turned over to individual site owners and an empowered cadre of 100+ content editorsLeveraging Drupal Layout Builder, along with a carefully curated set of components, Provus provides site owners with layout options based upon sets of component blocks that can be mixed and matched for no-code, drag-and-drop content editing. While each of the sites is utilizing the same code base, every department’s site has a distinct database, with a cohesive design language and brand guidelines.

Open Source Advantage

The Open Source Drupal CMS has sparked a depth and breadth of benefits. No longer locked in with proprietary software and the associated vendor licensing fees, Orange County now owns the code to its site and is positioned to benefit from the upgrades, new releases, and collective brainpower of the million-member-strong Drupal Community.Significant cost savings are resulting from the elimination of proprietary software licensing fees, a favorable hosting fee model with Acquia, and greater efficiencies overall. Current estimated annual cost savings now stands at $100,000.Savings stemming from migration to an Open Source CMS are in alignment with Promet’s conviction that public funds should not be used to pay for private code.

A CMS That Allows for Flexibility

The Result

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Research

Competitive benchmark
User personas
Site map and User Journeys
Wireframes

Branding

Identity extension
Digital brand guidelines
Market research

Digital experience

Creative direction
Website design
Design system

Development

Front-end development
Website migration
Custom Drupal CMS
Quality assurance

Let’s start your project

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