The Tactile Group (Tactile) announced today that they have been engaged by the City of Boston, Massachusetts, to redesign and upgrade its internal website, currently known as the Hub. The interactive tool allows the 18,000 employees of the City access to their benefits and personal data, provides employees with meaningful information about their workplaces, and encourages employees to engage with their co-workers beyond their day-to-day activities. 

Working closely with the City’s Chief Information Officer Jascha Franklin-Hodge and Chief Digital Officer Lauren Lockwood, and alongside co-consultant Acquia, the Tactile team will base the redesigned site on extensive research, which includes usability testing, stakeholder discussions, and hands-on design workshops.  Tactile will build on the digital brand developed for the public-facing Boston municipal website to design a new, Drupal-based internal site.

"We are excited to be developing this suite of tools that will afford the City of Boston’s digital team the ability to expand the site’s capabilities over time," said Marc Coleman, President and CEO of The Tactile Group.  "Government entities are demanding extensibility more and more for the sake of efficiency and cost savings, and we are pleased to be at the forefront of this trend.  By using extensible components Tactile is giving our clients a box of Legos that can be used as needed, instead of a house of completed templates."

Tactile's robust user research phase will elicit ideas for features and offerings that enable  City of Boston employees to easily and efficiently accomplish day-to-day tasks. The new internal site is expected to initially re-launch in mid-2016.