After more than a year of hard work with the digital teams of the public interest association, we were happy and proud to launch the Petits Frères des Pauvres intranet on June 14, 2021.
Les Petits Frères des Pauvres
Founded in 1946 by Armand Marquiset, the Petits Frères des Pauvres today represent in France a network of more than 12,000 volunteers and 600 employees across more than 300 action sites. It is the most important association, alongside its Foundation and establishments, specializing in issues relating to the isolation of the elderly.
The work of Petits Frères des Pauvres (PFP) is still carried out today around fundamental values of respect and fellowship. Volunteers and employees provide long-term support to help our elders rebuild, create social networks, and emerge from isolation, while also providing the material assistance they need.
The project - An intranet / 12,000 users
The association called on the bluedrop.fr agency to lead the redesign of the association’s intranet. This intranet, initially focused mainly on documentation, serves as the working tool for all 600 employees and 12,000 volunteers in the association.
The challenge of this redesign was therefore to offer:
- A vital internal communication tool, uniting all stakeholders (volunteers and employees);
- A resource tool for searching internal documents (procedures, institutional documents);
- An entry point to other IT applications.
UX Design
The bluedrop.fr agency and the Petits Frères des Pauvres project team worked collaboratively on the UX design. The UX guidelines focused on the following points:
- Improving the intranet’s image and reputation;
- Redefining the role of the intranet compared to other internal tools;
- Defining the editorial line to align with objectives and target audiences;
- Creating access for everyone and integrating it systematically into onboarding pathways;
- Improving navigation and the ability to locate different intranet contents/applications;
- Simplifying and making the overall ergonomics intuitive, especially for business applications;
- Providing an efficient search engine and improving the document corpus (archives, structure);
- Enhancing the contribution experience to the intranet;
- Migrating content from the previous intranet.
Workshops offered:
- User journey workshops;
- Design studio workshops;
- User testing workshops.
The user testing workshop made it possible to improve and validate the prototypes. Ten participants carried out the tests. They were tasked with completing activities on the prototype of the future site, giving their feedback, and taking part in a short interview after the tests. Given the circumstances, the tests were conducted remotely, and both screens and audio sessions were recorded.
UI Design
The UI design was heavily influenced by the new graphic charter introduced in January 2019, accompanied by a detailed brand book. We also chose an Atomic Design approach for the rollout of wireframes and for preparing instructions for the development team.
Development with Drupal 9
Design and the first development sprint (content migration) started in May 2020. We chose to launch the project with Drupal 9, whose first stable release was in February 2020.
The project team chose to use the Emulsify theme, for its atomic integration logic. This theme provides a library of Storybook components, a webpack development environment, and a Drupal starter kit. We used it as a prototyping tool within the Drupal installation.
We also paid special attention to the contribution experience by using the Gin theme along with some convenience configurations for content contributors. Contribution is also enhanced by the use of 15 types of configurable paragraphs across several content types.
Main features:
- SSO – Implementation of an identity management system – Protocol and Open ID Module;
- Management of a news feed and agenda, customizable by user roles and geographic location;
- Configuration of a contribution workflow;
- Advanced search in the document database;
- Management of the document base and its lifecycle;
- Providing a directory and listings through a connector;
- Newsletter and alerts management for users;
- Implementation of the association’s GDPR policy;
- Favorites management (searches, documents, applications).
Operations
The bluedrop.fr agency handles hosting and maintenance of the intranet. Significant updates are already planned for the start of the school year, as we will need to connect the intranet to the training offer provided by the association for its employees and volunteers.
In the meantime, we warmly thank the Petits Frères des Pauvres project team for this successful collaboration, their openness, their patience at times, and their determination.
To find out more:
Intranet Drupal 9 – https://intranet.petitsfreresdespauvres.fr
