Team Sizewell C: Extranet PWA
The brief
Following hot on the heels of the new Community Relations websites, and sizewellc.com and the AMS, our next task was to create an Extranet platform for Sizewell C.
The ultimate goal was to create an inclusive, accessible location for SZC workers and contracting partners that would be immediately recognisable as Sizewell C while offering comprehensive information to anyone working on this massive construction project – from bus timetables and menus to the latest news, team directory and an interactive sitemap.
The solution
We tend to take a mobile-first approach to web design anyway, but our user research phase suggested that this particular tool would most likely be used on smartphones ‘in the field’. With this in mind, we pitched the idea of building the Team Sizewell C Extranet as a Progressive Web App (PWA) – the best elements of a website and native app combined.
We couldn’t guarantee that workers out on site would always have data connectivity. A PWA would enable content admins to select specific pages to be cached for offline browsing which could literally be the difference between life and death for key information in critical situations.
Following extensive consultation and wireframing with site teams and stakeholders to ensure we fully understood user needs, we built a lo-fi demo of the basic PWA functionality that we presented to the business to showcase the powerful features and benefits. Our proposed solution was unanimously approved.
App design
Having established a far-reaching design system for Sizewell C’s digital platforms, we were able to expedite the design phase. Our PWA solution would use WordPress as the base platform so we were able to adapt and restyle the flexible content blocks used across the wider ecosystem, with a few new additions.
The overall look and feel would be consistent with all the other SZC websites we’ve built, but as Team Sizewell C would have a more app-like appearance, we used subtle gradients for a slight twist on the brand colour palette.
We also built custom site menus for desktop and mobile, favouring an animated burger menu for desktop and the traditional bottom nav bar for mobile devices.
Back-end functionality
The SZC comms team, who would manage sizewellc.com and the Extranet day-to-day, were keen to avoid the duplication of work wherever possible. To that end, we built an integration between the two platforms that would allow relevant news posted to the public website to be automatically imported into Team Sizewell C. These posts could then be edited for the Extranet audience if necessary.
As well as offline browsing functionality, we built a simple alerts tool that would allow short updates with an expiry date/time to be sent out to opted-in users as push notifications (to desktop browsers and mobile devices), for example, site weather warnings. These alerts would also appear on a notifications tab within the app, prioritised as critical, important or normal.
In addition, we gave content managers the ability to create time-based polls and calendar invite links for events. They can also anonymously track the search terms used in the site search box which is very useful information for ongoing content creation.
Front-end UX
We built Team Sizewell C so that anyone with an @sizewellc.com email address can log in without needing to register. Other users, such as 3rd party contractors, would need to register and be approved for access. To mitigate the need for manual intervention, we created automated tools that would manage the joiners, movers and leavers process.
We’ve also given front-end users the ability to upload a profile pic, like pages and posts, bookmark pages to appear as ‘quick links’ on the homepage, and opt to receive an email notification when pages of interest are updated. This is a handy feature for dynamic pages that are updated frequently, for example, canteen menus, parking information and bus timetables.
Next steps
As with previous SZC sites, Team Sizewell C will be self-managed from here so it was essential that we design and build a robust platform that can be easily scaled over time. The Extranet PWA is yet to be fully deployed (it’s currently in end-user testing with a select focus group), but the building blocks are most certainly in place for a powerful, intuitive and dependable companion for anyone working on the Sizewell C project now and in the years to come.
