WSIB, Modern Health and Safety

The WSIB partnered with Northern to create a modern health and safety platform matching the needs of businesses and employees.

Enhanced

Site security, performance, and speed

Reduced

Development time and enhanced code consistency

Eight

Less than 8 months to complete

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Industry

Government

Technology Partners

Acquia

Drupal

Solutions

Digital Experience Platform (DXP) Implementation

Need to Know

Acquia Cloud Edge enhanced the security and protection of sensitive personal data related to workplace injury compensation while increasing the site speed.
Acquia Pipelines ensured code consistency during development while increasing the speed of the project's deployment.
This complex and time-sensitive project took just eight months to complete.

Client

The WSIB is one of the largest insurance organizations in North America, covering over five million people in more than 300,000 workplaces across Ontario and serving constituents in two languages, English and French.

Challenge

The WSIB, charged with a new strategic directive to be more informative and less reactive, meant delivering client support beyond simply helping transact work-related injuries. However, problems with its website had been building for some time. By 2018, many users were frustrated by the slow page load times, broken links, poor navigation, and weak search.

The WSIB needed a new intuitive digital experience, quick-loading pages, and a mobile-first approach while allowing its web team greater control, reducing their reliance on IT support. This project would be monumental as WSIB's online delivery of programs and services simultaneously changed as per its new directive.

Content migration was critical for a site with as much content as WSIB; substantial time was allocated for content auditing before, during, and after migration. For site users, the focus needed to make sure they can find what they need without assistance, reducing the need for WSIB staff to field phone calls for basic inquiries.

Carer and senior in wheelchair with WSIB website on mobile overlay

Left

The Strategy

Northern facilitated a series of on-site discovery sessions identifying WSIB's target audiences, IT requirements, critical business objectives, defining the project timeline, and refining its scope. Northern's user experience team then designed intuitive customer pathways and recommended information architecture improvements. Northern's UI team developed navigation and visual design that conveyed a clear, consistent, and compelling story, where information is easier to find.

The redesigned site equips employers and funders with information on enrollment issues, health and safety standards, and statistics. It also supports more robust messaging that speaks to WSIB’s most influential audience and the ones who most often call its service line: individuals in need of its services.

The poor site search, the fallout of which caused many people to call the WSIB service centre, was entirely revamped with the powerful Solr Search API Integration. Solr is known for its speed and ability to handle both large commercial websites' complexity and data-heavy search needs.

Right

Partnerships between Northern and Acquia allowed for rapid deployment

WSIB deals with sensitive personal data related to workplace injury compensation, including reports, claim-related documents, legal documents, invoices, and financial documents. Northern used Acquia Cloud Edge to upgrade the site security, performance, and speed and used Acquia Pipelines to reduce development time and ensure code consistency by controlling team permissions.

WSIB get a clearance certificate functionality

Left

Scaling faster at reduced costs

WSIB can now create campaign microsites with reduced hosting costs. Its new digital ecosystem features integration capabilities that support future releases, such as an upcoming WSIB e-services portal.

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