The new look, user experience, delivery, and continuous maintenance of the Ymparisto.fi website – all from Wunder!

The Finnish Environment Institute (Syke)Opens in a new tab is a government research institute primarily guided by the Ministry of the Environment. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry oversees matters related to water resources. Syke's mission is to provide expert knowledge and independent data on global phenomena such as climate change, biodiversity loss, overconsumption, pollution, and eutrophication.

The Ymparisto.fiOpens in a new tab online service offers citizens, businesses, and authorities environmental information. Some of the site's content consists of research on environmental topics and the state of the environment, while other sections provide information on permits, regulations, and environmental impact assessment projects. The site also includes regional data produced by the ELY Centres. The Ymparisto.fi website is maintained by the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), the Ministry of the Environment, the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (ARA), 13 ELY Centres, and the Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI).

The goal of the Ymparisto.fi website redesign project was to create an online service that helps various stakeholders make environmentally sustainable decisions and choices. Other key objectives included:

• Good user experience – Information should be presented in an easy-to-digest format.
• A trustworthy source of information – The service should be perceived as a reliable information source.
• Easy access to information – Finding relevant information should be simple.
• Long-lasting and cost-effective technical solution – The website's platform should be designed for longevity and efficiency.

The project also aimed to achieve certain indirect changes with positive ripple effects, such as:

• Increased awareness of the state of the environment – A general understanding of how individual actions impact the environment.
• Citizens' understanding of their societal influence – People should be aware of their opportunities to influence societal matters.
• Better knowledge of legal obligations – Environmental administration clients should have a clearer understanding of regulatory requirements.
• Increased self-sufficiency of stakeholders – Stakeholders should be able to advance their issues independently, leading to fewer inquiries to environmental administration customer service.

In April 2021, the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) announced a procurement notice for the redesign and development of the Ymparisto.fi website, along with the continuous developmentOpens in a new tab, application maintenance, and hosting servicesOpens in a new tab of the implemented platform. Wunder won the public tender and was selected as the overall responsible provider.

Experts from all environmental administration organizations participated in the website redesign project, with Syke leading the project as the product owner and coordinator. The joint project officially began in September 2021 with a kickoff meeting. At the start, the project's goals, schedule, budget, key aspects of service design and implementation, and communication methods throughout the project were reviewed. In addition to covering these general topics, Wunder also held a psychological safety workshop, in line with its working practices.

A unique aspect of the Ymparisto.fi project was Wunder's responsibility for designing the new brand identity, including the logo, colors, typography, icons, writing style, and image style guidelines. The service designOpens in a new tab focused on creating a website that would serve as a communication channel for all target groups and establish a consistent tone of voice. The user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design took into account the needs of both mobile and desktop users, with a strong emphasis on ensuring accessibilityOpens in a new tab according to WCAG standards.

The implementation phase followed the Scrum delivery model, with development progressing through short sprints. Syke was responsible for acceptance testing and producing updated content, while Wunder’s technical experts developed the visual design, custom website functionalities, and content creators’ views. The new website was first released as an alpha version, followed by an internal beta release, a public beta release, and finally, the new Ymparisto.fi site officially replaced the old one as the final launch.

My main impression of Wunder is that you have professionally mastered agile methods and processes are functioning well. This is not always the case. We have also had a very good team working throughout the project, and there hasn’t been constant personnel turnover. This has brought continuity to the work and prevented the loss of tacit knowledge. You also proactively monitor Drupal vulnerabilities, allowing us to sleep soundly in that regard. Overall, the environment has been stable and reliable. – Marika Leed, Project Manager, Digital Services, Finnish Environment Institute (Syke).

Key elements of the collaboration

The client's project team, consisting of the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), the Ministry of the Environment (YM), the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centres), and the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (ARA), were closely involved in the planning phase, including definition and UX/UI designOpens in a new tab. During the implementation phase, the same project team was needed to refine and provide feedback on functional details. Their contributions to content creation and acceptance testing increased as the website launch approached. The content production was advanced by a content working group led by Syke.

Content creators transitioned to using the Drupal CMS for content management, so the main users were trained on how to use this content management system, including its capabilities and features.

The alpha version of the rebuilt ymparisto.fi website was completed in February 2022. In the alpha version, several additions were made as planned, such as customizations to the maintenance interface following training for Syke's main users, finalizing APIs, user testing of the site search, and other modifications. The internal beta version was released in April 2022. As Wunder's team neared completion, content creators worked diligently on preparing the website for launch. The public beta version was released alongside the old website in October 2022, and the official transition from the old site to the new one took place in March 2023.

Before the launch, key communication personnel undertook a significant effort to update content and writing style. The full Finnish version of the website can be found at www.ymparisto.fiOpens in a new tab , with information also available in Swedish at https://www.ymparisto.fi/svOpens in a new tab and in English at https://www.ymparisto.fi/enOpens in a new tab .

Wunder is responsible for the website's hosting, utilizing the Silta environment for infrastructure management and Google Cloud for cloud capacity.

A unique feature of the project was Syke's implementation of SAML2 protocol for content creators' login using Virtu, a user authentication system provided by the State Information and Communication Technology Centre (Valtori) and operated by the CSC IT Center for Science.

Syke and Wunder have continued their close collaboration over the past years on website maintenance and ongoing development. Wunder’s diverse expert services are utilized as needed, which were also leveraged during the redesign project.