[Case Study]
Providing Safe,
Affordable &
Reliable Energy
for Minnesota
[The Story]
The PUC's mission is
to create and maintain a regulatory environment that ensures safe, adequate and efficient utility services as fair, reasonable rates consistent with State telecommunications and energy policies. One of the key functions of the PUC in performing this mission is to balance the private and public interests affected in each docket, and to make decisions that appropriately balance these interests in a manner “consistent with the public interest.”
THE
NEED
The PUC website is an important medium used to communicate relevant information to all consumers living in Minnesota. Internal and external feedback received from consumers and key stakeholders provided the business justification to support a complete redesign of the existing PUC website.
THE
SOLUTION
As demand increased for completely seamless website experiences, we reevaluated PUC’s web strategies in order to meet these expectations. Throughout the project, we worked closely with various internal stakeholders comprised of executive, technical, and division workgroup teams. The end result was a newly designed and developed website that was designed with user experience front and center. The optimized, mobile-friendly website offers a customer-centric look and feel to make it easier to locate information and perform key user tasks. The new website is responsive and compatible with modern mobile devices and web interfaces.
[The Highlights]
Responsive Design.
The redesign required an updated, modern look and feel that was responsive to mobile use. The site was designed for all major mobile browsers and devices (iOS and Android). It was compatible with all major desktop/laptop browsers.
[The Highlights]
User Experience Research & Testing.
One of the most important goals of the PUC website redesign was to improve the usability of the website so that site users could more easily find content and perform desired tasks. To this end, we conducted user experience research in order to inform and create a new information architecture and navigation. We began by identifying key site information and tasks and conducted card sorting and personal interview exercises with external audiences.
[The Highlights]
Wireframe, Prototype & Design.
Wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes are developed in order to represent the structure of information on the website and to visualize the content and demonstrate the basic functionalities in a static way. Rapid prototypes allow for first impression testing and online, collaborative review of the site mockup. Finally, high-fidelity design concepts are developed that represent the data in a visually pleasing and interactive manner.
[The Highlights]
Technical Support Services.
Technical support services provide additional resources to tackle minor and major development needs. After the site had been launched, PUC needed Nighthawk to continue to work within their development server to fix miscellaneous bugs and add specifically targeted enhancements that would increase the longevity of the website. Once PUC approved all work done initially inside the dev server, we migrated the code to their live server, production site, and then retested to ensure everything was working correctly.
SERVICES
PROVIDED
OPEN/CLOSED CARD SORT
STRATEGY CONSULTING
USER EXPERIENCE RESEARCH
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
CONTENT AUDIT
WIREFRAME & PROTOTYPE
RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN
WEB DEVELOPMENT
CONTENT MIGRATION
TESTING & QA
ANALYTICS & OPTIMIZATION
WEBSITE SUPPORT
ACCESSIBILITY COMPLIANCE
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
TECHNOLOGIES
USED
Tridion CMS
BOOTSTRAP
HTML/CSS/JS
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