Skip to Content
Home ยป Case Studies

Web Application: Elsevier

Top Line Result: Developed and operate a global web-based solution for book development and distributed authorship.

Situational Analysis

Elsevier – one of the world’s largest publishers – was looking for a web-based solution to improve its editorial development process for large multi-author titles. The existing editorial process was handled without a centralized system, and the process relied heavily on e-mail communications and spreadsheets to track hundreds of manuscripts and thousands of images.

Despite wanting to change, business users in the company remained hesitant to adopt a technology solution for this process because of legitimate concerns about a steep learning curve for an automated system and the need to provide technical support for globally distributed authors.

Strategy

A "prove the benefit and grow solution adoption" strategy was chosen, utilizing some of the best aspects of agile development, alongside OHO's unique approach to user-centered design. 

Working with a single publishing group responsible for developing 1000+ page medical texts, OHO conceptualized a system that would meet the business users' requirements:

  • A single deployment that could handle multiple titles
  • A flexible workflow engine and review process that could be configured in different ways for each title
  • The ability to manage, track and review high-resolution images 
  • The ability to manage page counts and image allocations to ensure economic viability of each title

The solution needed to overcome adoption issues and user objections about system complexity. Users were concerned not only about learning the application themselves, but also about the need to use limited in-house resources to train scores of authors. To address these concerns, OHO developed a user adoption strategy:

  • OHO's design and UX teams created a streamlined interface that has the look and feel of popular contemporary web applications, to make users feel comfortable in the interface from day one.
  • The interface doesn't overwhelm users with options, instead exposing actionable items as they are needed
  • Authors get a much-simplified workflow, with actionable items grouped on a single landing page. The author interface requires little training from editors.
  • For all end users, the application provides rich on-screen help with step-by-step instructions, eliminating  training time

Implementation

Alfresco Oracle Ajax

OHO developed and rolled out the new application in less than 6 months. The in-house development team built the application, including a work flow engine and notification systems, on a customized content management system that runs using an Oracle database environment. The site was reviewed and tested by editors within Elsevier and by authors worldwide. 

Adoption

The decision to marry emerging web application conventions and a clean, user-focused interface eliminated resistance to internal adoption by editorial groups. After just one demonstration of the easy-to-use system, internal business partners found new editorial groups ready to make the transition.

The initial beta rollout swelled from several books to dozens in less than 12 months. During the beta phase, over 10,000 authors and editors in 60 countries are using the system.