Taitotalo
A modern and search engine-friendly website implemented using agile methods
Taitotalo is Finland’s leading vocational adult education centre and a partner for businesses. It offers nearly 90 degrees, over 60 professional certificates, and more than 600 short courses across various professional fields. It has partnerships with over 100 companies.
Our collaboration began with a content management system (CMS) renewal project in August 2023. Taitotalo’s Drupal website, built in 2018, no longer met the needs of its customer and service structure. Druid was selected to execute the project through an open tender process. We are responsible for the maintenance and further development of the site.
Focus on customer experience and manageability
The website redesign project aimed to improve service discoverability and the site’s search functionality, ensuring that different user groups can easily find relevant information directly from the homepage or search results. Users were intended to easily see where they are within the site structure at any given time.
“We wanted identified customer segments to quickly find their way to the information they needed. The goal was also to enhance content search engine discoverability, accessibility, and the customer experience for different user groups.”
Sanna Taavila, Marketing and Communications Manager, Taitotalo
The redesign aimed to facilitate content production, enabling the diverse team responsible for Taitotalo’s extensive content to effortlessly create and update content consistently.
“In the project, we developed content management by leveraging proven functionalities of Drupal, such as paragraphs. Additionally, content templates guiding content production ensure that essential information is always available to the reader,” explains Druid’s Project Manager Erika Vanhala. “The site was designed and built from the start to meet accessibility requirements. This work was done in close collaboration with our strategic partner Don & Branco, who were responsible for the redesign and design.”
“We formed a strong team with Druid, where user-centred design and technical expertise were combined exemplarily. It was a pleasure to be part of Taitotalo’s website redesign project and work with top-notch developers. We firmly believe that a well-considered visual appearance and user experience are key to a successful website, and we are proud to help create a modern and functional online environment for Taitotalo together with Druid,” says Don & Branco’s Business Development Director Riku Wirta.
Seamless and smooth collaboration
The project progressed straightforwardly according to goals, and the new website was launched in March 2024. “I expected at least some minor surprises, but the project proceeded easily and smoothly. It was nice to collaborate,” praises Sanna Taavila. According to Taavila, the revamped taitotalo.fi has received positive feedback from both students and staff.
“The project schedule and Taitotalo’s longer-than-usual release pipeline required a new level of planning from the team, but with close and open collaboration using the Scrum model, achieving the goals was easy,” says Erika Vanhala, thanking both the Taitotalo and Don & Branco teams for their collaborative effort.
The new site lives and evolves
“Currently, we are transferring the student feedback system under Drupal. Additionally, we are monitoring how the goals defined at the project’s start are converting, and we are gathering further development requests from the staff. Based on these needs, we will continue to develop the site,” notes Sanna Taavila. “In the long term, the goal is to add e-commerce functionalities to the site.”
