E2 news portal
Inspired by the overarching goal of keeping pace with the latest developments in digital communications, the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) decided to replace its print magazine with a modern news portal. The result is E2, a digital space that invites you to browse and linger.
“We felt that Linkgroup understood us right from the start. The vast experience that Linkgroup brings to such projects was palpable. Everyone working on the project was committed. They listened and presented convincing solutions. The project steps built on each other and were realistically scheduled along the timeline.”
Client’s wish
A survey of readers of the SERI News magazine revealed that the existing online implementation was not sufficiently user-friendly or digital. It also emerged that users wanted to be able to read more online going forward. SERI wanted a modern, visually independent and user-centred thematic portal that would provide accessible information on the federal government’s education, research and innovation policy and achieve reach even without a print edition.
Solution
The E2 news portal harnesses the diverse possibilities of digital communication: multimedia content is linked to stories, continuous publishing ensures the timely dissemination of news, and readers can navigate easily within the topics via a tag cloud. From national space legislation to school-leaving exams, the SERI’s wide-ranging topics can be filtered and found in no time at all – in German, English and French. The news portal is barrier-free and enables intelligent networking with other digital communication channels. It features a unique colour scheme and a modern design with a journalistic feel that’s clearly distinguishable from the corporate website.
Process
The foundations for the news portal were laid with a project canvas and several workshops in which personas, user stories, needs, goals and the information architecture were defined. Thanks to wireframes and design mood boards, the client was able to decide on the visual and colour language as well as the font concept of the digital space. The backend development of the news portal is based on Craft, a CMS technology that will allow the news portal to be easily expanded and evolved in the future. A notification system for readers is also planned. Everyone involved showed extreme commitment to finding an appealing name for the portal in a creative workshop. Based on Einstein’s famous formula (E = mc2) and the SERI’s address (Einsteinstrasse 2) the obvious but surprising solution E2 emerged.
Client
The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) is the Swiss federal government’s competence centre for national and international education, research and innovation policy issues. Together with its partners, it’s committed to ensuring that Switzerland continues to have an efficient ERI sector in the future.
Products
E2 news portal: workshops, conceptual design, wireframes, back-end and front-end development, UX/UI
Website
More information
Anton Ackermann
Product owner
T +41 44 268 12 40
anton.ackermann@linkgroup.ch
Anna-Pia Link
Head of UX/UI design
T +41 44 268 12 35
anna-pia.link@linkgroup.ch
Florian Poprat
Consultant digital solutions
T +41 44 268 12 12
M +41 76 419 56 66
florian.poprat@linkgroup.ch
Christian Schwander
Partner
T +41 44 268 12 05
M +41 79 420 19 53
christian.schwander@linkgroup.ch
Franco Troxler
UX/UI designer
T +41 44 268 12 75
franco.troxler@linkgroup.ch
Adrian Widmer
Head of web development
T +41 44 268 12 67
adrian.widmer@linkgroup.ch
