cAH (Centre André Henzelin), a naturopathy school based in Lausanne, understood the importance of a user-friendly, comprehensive platform that administrators, professors and students could access for course information. But they needed help creating something that worked for all three user groups. Enter storm. We designed and developed an intranet completely from scratch and made sure it did everything that all cAH stakeholders wanted it to.
“storm did a fantastic job of meeting the needs of our students, teachers and school administrators. The feedback about this intranet has been very positive. People have said that this custom-made intranet has made their lives easier and has improved everyday workflow.”
Like any intranet, the platform is accessible with login credentials. But unlike any other intranet, it has its own design and functionalities that were determined and designed according to interviews with students, administrators and professors. We used our own expertise to build the school intranet, but it was their ideas, wishes and experiences that shaped the outcome.
Three types of users meant that we needed three different views of the intranet. Our biggest challenge in designing and building this academic intranet was defining what information each user sees and does not see. For example, in interviews with students, we discovered that it was important to them that administrators saw what the professors were uploading to the intranet. So we built this view into the intranet so all stakeholders were happy.
We kicked off this project by conducting user interviews to first get a sense of what the users wanted and expected from the new intranet. From their answers, we created wireframes and sketches. We also created a design and visual identity that reflects the school’s culture and naturopathic teachings. Then everything was developed in-house and user tests were conducted at every stage to ensure that the final product met (or exceeded!) everyone’s expectations. We give this project an A+.
