Project

Alcatel required a diverse and rich orientation program to be delivered on their intranet. What makes this program particularly interesting is the other conditions that were required to be met. Alcatel wanted the site to be very interactive, with a large number of questions to ensure retention of material.

There were to be no plug-ins or web players required, and we were required to produce the training in HTML, with the results to be stored and retrieved from a central location. Pulling together DHTML, JavaScript and Cold Fusion technologies, we were able to build an HTML based site that met Alcatel's criteria and still had a lot of the functionality of other CD-ROM based orientation training packages.

Our Brief:

• we need to know what the student has done - each section needed to have a quiz and the employee's answers for each question had to be recorded in a centrally located web-based database. This allowed Alcatel management to track those areas that were most visited and areas of employee misunderstanding.
  
  
• use Alcatel's corporate colours of orange and grey - we had strict design and layout guidelines to adhere to. The end result is really quite striking.
  
  
• the content must appeal to employees with varying levels of technical knowledge about the telecommunications industry - some employees have considerable understanding, others are just new to the industry. The site needed to have something for everyone.
  
  
• provide ease of movement around the site - employees can move anywhere they wish, in any order. As they move around, their progress is marked allowing easy review of materials.

• provide plenty of interaction - employees are provided with a diverse range of activities and questions to keep them on their toes at all times.
  
  
• explain what we do - a seemingly straight forward task and yet, in such a technical industry, not at all the case! This required input from a number of senior executives to help make this information clear and concise. Now available on the orientation site, this information is accessible to all.
  
  
• include a Glossary of terms- employees have easy access to a pop-up glossary for quick reference on a great number of industry specific terms.
  
  
• use DHTML- although we expect this to happen more often in the future, this was the first time a client had expressly asked for DHTML.
  
  
• no Plugins / Web Players- the IT department expressly asked that the site have no reliance on plug-in technology.

Interesting Bits:

• our favourite part - working with Natasha Lee and Kevin Hayes - always professional, incredibly helpful and great fun!
  
  
• something friendly in the interface - Kevin and Natasha wanted to inject something light-hearted into the training - like a cartoon character. We developed cartoon character icons for each menu item and also incorporated a same style 'cuddly' feedback lady who claps with glee when you get a question right and shrugs her shoulders if you get it wrong!
  
  
• the Quarter Century Club - we were really impressed with this one. The Quarter Century Club is for employees who have been with the company for 25 years or more. For the entire Alcatel organisation, there are over 600 members!
  
  
• international interest - the site, although only accessible from within the Alcatel company, is generating interest from around the world as employees in Germany and the USA are able to access and take the training.
  
  
• the "Go for it" attitude - the client wanted us to push the envelope on this one and so we pushed! The result was an innovative and engaging site of over 150 pages.
  
  
• Q&A - employees can ask each executive in the company, as well as several colleagues, a selection of pre-set questions , e.g. "What do you do?", "Who do you work with?", "Tell us about your career", etc.