www.ptovic.com.au

Completed December 2011

Project Overview

The Public Transport Ombudsman (PTO) was established in 2004, as a not-for-profit, independent, dispute-resolution body. It was founded to freely provide an accessible service for the resolution of complaints regarding Victorian public transport operators, who are members of the PTO scheme. Complaints can be placed informally and are dealt with in a friendly, unbiased manner.

The PTO approached the team at butterfly with two key requirements: a website redesign and a content management system (CMS). The main objective behind the site was to simplify site updates. Their site was previously managed in a system called “Contribute J”. The clunky nature of its functionality meant that making updates to the site was a tedious process. Needless to say, finding a new CMS that was simple to use, and saved time was a high priority.  Updating the look of the site was also an integral part of the project, as it was developed many years ago, and had become outdated.

To remedy this, when the PTO brought out their annual report introducing a bright new colour palette which consisted of orange, green and mauve, it naturally became a subtle part of the new website design. As the traditional colours are a range of dark blue shades, the butterflies needed to introduce new colours in a way that was fairly understated and didn’t feature too heavily but were significant enough that users could make the connection between the annual report and their website to maximise brand consistency

Technology & Design

Prior to commencing the project, we scoped out the main areas of importance and discussed the structure before drafting up wireframes. The site didn’t require anything tricky, it simply needed to be clear and easy to find information. The previous website looked dated because it still had a left-hand navigation menu which inhibited the growth of the site. 

Beginning with the home page of the site, we re-structured the navigation splitting it into two levels, the A level menu has drop-down menus and the B level menu caters for less important areas of the site. This alone was a vast improvement. Following this, we needed to make three particular areas stand out more so we placed these quite prominently along side the slide rotator and featured them in the new colour palette making them a key focal point to help drive traffic to crucial parts of the site.

The new site layout has improved navigation so users can find what they are looking for with ease. The way in which the colours have been used also helps to assist with this. Your eye gets drawn to the navy blue used in the A level navigation and can easily move down the page.

PTO’s site was also designed to increase market visibility to help them stand out against the competition and to also ensure their site didn’t feel too content heavy. To accomplish this, butterfly simply provided some additional internal layouts that were designed to accommodate lengthy areas of content. The area for “Publications and Media” has a nice blog layout featuring thumbnail images of various documents. This makes it a little more interesting than just looking at a page full of links.

Each menu section has its own custom-designed internal banner, and some feature real images from the PTO. The imagery is also a fresh look for the PTO. Previously, their site consisted of content only and there were no images. One of the advantages was that butterfly had access to PTO’s staff photos so we were able to use “real” people as opposed to Istock imagery. This was important due to the nature of this organisation. When you contact someone with a work-related grievance you want to feel like you’re speaking with a real person, not a computer or a recorded voice.

Project Conclusion

The new website is now looking fresh and modern by utilising current web trends and the administrators of the site are now enjoying a much better CMS. Overall, it’s a huge improvement for design, functionality and manageability, to check out this lovely new website click here