WEL Networks
Utilities
Even with a long history of success, organisations like WEL Networks (WEL) need to stay on top of innovation and sustainability to ensure their customers keep thriving. WEL recognised that with their website not delivering as it should, it was time to invest in a more modern digital presence to really meet those customers' needs.
The Challenge
WEL recognised that their website did not reflect current offerings and customers probably had an inconsistent experience as well as some difficulty in accessing the right information. As a result, they reached out to Enlighten Designs to elevate their web presence that catered to the following challenges:
- Consistent branding across all digital platforms that matched with their current campaigns and public service messaging
- A seamless user experience to increase and maintain customer engagement
- Autonomy over content editing and creation to allow WEL more control over the information they shared
- Provide easy access to relevant information for customers, especially new initiatives
Illuminate workshop Mural 
Wel Website Review Process The Journey
The WEL website project kicked off with an Illuminate workshop. These workshops are always the first part of Enlighten's Discovery & Design phase, with the aim of getting clarity around the challenges for all stakeholders and to align on the end goal, ensuring a smoothly delivered project. After the Illuminate workshop was completed and all requirements gathered, it was clear that an Umbraco-based website would be the optimal solution.
To begin with, the Enlighten team created an initial design for the website that could be used to provide WEL with a visual experience on what the end result would look and feel like. For web projects, it is more efficient to complete a design before writing any code. This can be used to refine and make any needed changes without costly impacts to the project once the build is underway. Hence, the first focus was on refining the information architecture, and creating a sitemap and low-fidelity wireframes to share with WEL.
With the feedback incorporated, the development team worked with the designers to break required features into components and finalise the high-fidelity designs. These steps required high engagement from WEL, right from the beginning, to ensure stakeholders were aligned, and more importantly, the needs of the end-users were kept in mind.
For example, information on Outages has been placed front and centre, and the list of addresses has been augmented with a map to make it easier to consume
We understood the importance of the discovery and design phase and Enlighten’s expertise helped us get this crucial part of the project rightThe actual development was an iterative process, where the Enlighten team worked on one 'component' at any given time based on the mock-ups. This resulted in WEL being able to provide feedback and conduct User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for any changes to be made without delay.
Before going live, it was essential for the WEL team to be familiar with the platform and how to maintain their website. Hence. Enlighten provided short training sessions that enabled WEL to be self-sufficient in creating fresh, relevant content for their new website as and when needed.
The Solution
WEL Networks' new website runs on Umbraco, a versatile Content Management System (CMS) that provides them control and flexibility for managing their website as they wish. As a result, the WEL team are now more than self-sufficient in creating relevant and engaging digital experiences for their customers.
A ‘component-oriented’ design creates elements that act as reusable and manageable building blocks for the website. This allows content creators and moderators to quickly build or update sections or pages without having to rely on developers. Thus, the WEL team now have the flexibility to update their website quickly at minimum cost while ensuring consistency of design – enabling them to scale their digital presence to address the needs of their customers.
With a Support Agreement in place with Enlighten’s Digital Response team, WEL have the confidence of ongoing access to the technical team for any issues that may arise.
Our new website is a huge improvement on the old one and it's great when you hear this from customers as well as internal stakeholders. The user experience is much better for customers especially when it comes to forms and site responsiveness, plus our own user experience is also vastly improved with greater autonomy
High Fidelity designs of the Home page and Get Connected page