Summary
The COI is a large government organisation that enables central government and public sector bodies to secure policy objectives by improving the effectiveness of government publicity programmes. It was experiencing high costs for production and distribution of essential publications, which were regularly updated. These publications were distributed free of charge as PDFs to government employees and were also available in hard copy for paying customers. Production costs were high and loss making. Regular updates required documents to be updated and reprinted, leaving previous documents out of date and unusable.
The solution was to design and implement a web based system to distribute secure PDFs which they could either print or save locally, whilst still allowing the public to order hard copies. This allowed the organisation to offer lower priced electronic PDFs due to the zero printing and distribution costs and instant order fulfilment.
Challenges
The challenge was to bring the COI’s publications portal into the 21st century giving their customers a better user experience, enabling their customers to quickly locate the information they needed, purchase it securely whilst protecting the COI’s intellectual content.
- Production costs were high and making a loss
- Documents needed to be regularly updated making previous publications out of date
- The current system was out of date and difficult to maintain
- There was no method of indicating related publications
- Users had difficulty locating the documents they need and the all round user experience was poor
The Solution
Mekon developed a web based solution which allowed users to easily and quickly access the latest information using improved navigation and topic-based selectors. All web content and documents could now be updated by administrators without involving the IT department.
Ecommerce was included to enable purchasers to pay for the publications with print-on-demand. Vitrium’s protectedpdf® server allows online publishers to secure documents against unauthorised use while providing legitimate readers with a satisfying user experience.
Features/Benefits
- Decreased dependency on IT department resources
- Increased revenue from electronic delivery
- User choice of electronic or hard copy documents
- Faster order fulfilment with electronic delivery
- Better reporting of document downloads
- Content and news articles easily updated by administrators
- Easier to search and find documents using filters and key words
- Better visibility of which publications are current and valid
