Like many agencies, a lot of new business within VanBerlo comes from repeat clients. That’s why it’s smart to keep your customers close. It is also extremely valuable to know what your clients are interested in. This is one of the main reasons for building Inspiration Boards. It is a tool to create mood boards digitally (similar to Pinterest), that you can easily share within the company. Another point of attention is the ability for companies to control who has access, and unlike similar tools, retain the obtained knowledge after a specific employee has left the company.
Workspaces, boards, and posts
Each company has a workspace, where users can create boards to collect posts about a specific topic.
Most of my time was spent developing the interface for Inspiration Boards. Implementing the UI our designer had come up with.
Chrome Extension
To make it easier for people to use the platform (which will increase value), I built a Chrome Extension as well. It's as easy as installing it and logging in, after which you'll be able to pin posts to a board in any of your workspaces with two clicks. And it automatically finds the images and videos on the page!
Working agile
During the project, we tried working in sprints of 2 weeks. The team consisted of 4 developers, a designer. We occasionally had meetings with two people higher up at VanBerlo, that are going to be using the platform with their clients.
The idea was to spend time on Inspiration Boards when we were able to and work together each Friday. This was quite detrimental to the momentum that's needed to work in sprints. This proved to be quite difficult. Sometimes the developers had much more time to spend than our designer, which meant we just started implementing the design as we saw fit. This resulted in our designer feeling bypassed, and us feeling slowed down by "the system". Ultimately, neither party was happy, which was for the most part caused by wrong planning.
Results and learnings
Our hard work has paid off. We built a great tool for VanBerlo's clients to enjoy, and one I personally enjoy using as well. I'm happy with the work I've managed during the project and learned to work in a larger team. Inspiration Boards currently being tested internally at VanBerlo and I'm looking forward to expand its functionality further in the (near) future.