Articles & Examples

The One 2 One story

Originally in the archives of this site. This article represents a body of development for the redesign of One 2 One’s web presence in 2001. The redesign revolved around multiple access from multiple platforms as well as integration of new mobile services.

Background

One to One is one of Europes largest telecommunications companies.

AGENCY.COM were approached by One 2 One in the summer of 2000 with a view to redesigning their website and intergrating many new services such as mobile email, SMS chat and online billing.

?Discovery?

AGENCY.COM had a solid development process. The first stage in this process was called ?Discovery?. The Discovery stage was essentially a number of sub stages to assess project scope, design and brand considerations, creative vision and marketing aim of a project. All of this came together in a complete and accurate functional specification and information architecture, the process then went into the next phase, ?Creative Rounds?.

The Discovery phase of the One 2 One project began by assessing the successes and failures of the existing One 2 One site (nicknamed ?puppy?). Although Puppy communicated the One 2 One brand very effectively it has some serious issues with usability and IA.

One of the driving forces behind the redesign was the fact that the One 2 One site had to be DDA complient by October 2001. Puppy was not DDA complient. Also the site had to be built around Weblogic, a new personalisation server in-house at One 2 One.

Work began assessing the existing One 2 One brand and how that could be effectively integrated into the new site. This involved extensive involvement with Futurebrand to push the One 2 One brand forward.

The grid was developed in line with typography styles. From this simple tabels and complex tables were designed and experiments and prototypes began on the navigation.

Discovery creative work

image

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 1 3

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 1 4

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 1 5

Creative Rounds

The AGENCY.COM development process included three creative rounds following the completion of the discovery phase.

The creative rounds involved taking on board all of the material produced during the Discovery Phase. Some of these were:

1. DDA compliency included Red/Green colour blindness - Red being a primary colour for One 2 One would have consequences if used for an actioning colour eg. link colour.

2. One 2 One’s brand going forward.

3. Market driven requirements - eg. Mobile on the move.

4. Integration of Yasmin functionality. ?Yasmin? was a character in an advertising / marketing campaign from several years ago. One 2 One had invested a lot of money and development time in producing a contextual help / search application called ?Yasmin?.

The implications of having an avatar type figure on the site were quite big and there were several serious DDA issues surrounding this figure. The marketing implications of having Yasmin as a ?Face of One 2 One? on the site were also questionable - not many people remembered her (I didn’t!) and she didn’t fully represent the brand going forward.

However, the functionality of Yasmin was quite useful in finding contextual information on a search, the problem in the usability lay in the fact she wasn’t called ?Search? but ?Yasmin?. Yasmin was to sit in the functional console, this in itself had implications with the usability of the site - What was she for? Is she attached to the services? How can she help me? Where’s the search? the list of questions went on…

5. Personalisation and Services. The site and design had to be flexible enough to accomodate certain changes throughout it’s lifespan. One of which would be certain levels of personlisation linked to the mobile services being offered in the future.

6. Ability to reskin. The site had to be able to be reskinned very easily. This would include reskinning all graphics and colours etc. The typographic heirachy, grid, Information Architecture, application design and UI would effectively remain the same. This came into effect when One 2 One became T-Mobile. The T-Mobile site is very similar in UI, AI and functional design as the One 2 One site was - it just looks different.

The portal designs where then addressed throughout the three creative rounds. Eventually a design was reached after a very lengthy process. The design went on to be applied site wide.

For more information on the build of the live site and screenshots of that design please look in the digital section.

Creative rounds creative work

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 3 2

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 3 4

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 3 5

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 3 3

Archive Images Gallery O2O Dev 3 1

Application design

There were several applications developed for the One 2 One site:

1. Shop
The shop is well, a shop. This application was developed externally but the design and IA was done by AGENCY.COM.

2. Coverage Checker
Developed inhouse at One 2 One, front end and IA was developed by AGENCY.COM

3. Mobile Email

4. Calendar

5. Reminder service

6. Diary

7. Online Billing - ?Self Serve?

All of these applications needed specific iconography and designs applying to them in line with the Information Architecture and UI design.

So essential was the design of these elements that if the design and UI did not work effectly the application would not be used - it’s as simple as that.

Have a look through the gallery to see screenshots of the designs put forward. For phase one of the site some of these applications were not built. Not being a T-Mobile customer I can’t comment if these applications made it to that phase of design.

For more information on the One 2 One design have a look in digital.

In the coming months I’m hoping to expand on this story as I think it makes fairly interesting reading as the evolution of a big brand online.

Applications creative work

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Legal disclaimer: Any redesigns of existing sites may use names, logos, graphics, and/or images which are trademarked or copyrighted by the owning organisation. These items do not fall under any copyright claim or association of Mark Boulton.

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A picture of Mark BoultonI'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.