Website redevelopment and mobile app development updates

Our Objectives

When we look back after launch, what do we want to have achieved?

• Minimize booking time.

• Minimize customer effort.

• Minimize manual admin processes.

• Maximize intuitive interactions.

• Maximize access to information

• Maximize happy travelers. 

What We Will Deliver

1. A website with an online reservation dashboard streamlined for travelers.

2. A subdomain serving relevant operational content on an elegant, modern interface. 

3. A mobile app available on the App Store and Google Play Store with all the features of the online reservations dashboard.

4. A digital platform linking it all together atop a modern technology foundation and elegantly implemented content management system.

Our Approach

Revealing reality is the foundation of our future work.

We’ll audit, memorialize, research, and map the current state of things. In six weeks, we will establish a detailed, fundamental understanding of the Authority’s current site and begin building & validating the new technical architecture. 

Duration: 6 weeks

Focused innovation is our unique approach to design. 

We’ll start with foundational styling and experience definition, but we’ll quickly move on to rapid prototyping - designing, testing, validating, and repeating until perfect.

Here’s how we’ll design the platform:

• Experience Foundation: Before style, content, and code comes structure. We’ll begin designing the platform by defining the overall structure of the core user experience. 

• Visual Foundation: In parallel with our efforts to set a user experience foundation, we will define the visual style of the platform - building a library of typography, colors, object styles, navigation, buttons, form UI, and other components to enable our design team to sprint ahead when rapid prototyping begins.

• Rapid Prototyping: Leveraging everything we’ve learned and created, we will design the platform over a series of sprints – designing, testing, validating, and repeating. 

Duration: approximately 16 weeks

Building and evolving is how we do development.

Our engineers will build the platform - but by way of regular demos and regular status reports, you’ll see progress every step of the way. 

Here are some of things we’ll be thinking about when we build:

• Deploy cross-functional teams: When designers and developers work in parallel, timelines shorten, communication improves, and work becomes more efficient. Once our experience foundation and visual styles have been defined, our cross-functional approach will enable designers and developers to work together in an iterative manner.

• Deliver using a microservices-based approach: If building technology is like building a house, then microservices are the plumbing and electrical wiring. With this critical infrastructure in place, we can flexibly add and remove integrations as needed without breaking the rest of the system - just as you might add an addition to your home. The Authority’s website and mobile app need to talk to a lot of different systems - and microservices lets us do that.

• Implement a flexible content management system (CMS): Media management, publishing tools, content migration, and a robust page builder that enables the creation of landing pages will be baked into this implementation.

• Optimize for search and digital marketing: our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) team will conduct an ongoing audit to design an SEO strategy tailored to the Steamship Authority. We’ll ensure that SEO is not just a box that gets ticked, but a central priority on the main website.

• Build for accessibility: Ensuring that everyone of all abilities can use this platform is absolutely critical. In order to create an inclusive experience, we will work with the Authority to meet WCAG 2.1 AA best practices at platform launch.

• Bake quality assurance into the process: We use a quality assurance (QA) framework called the “Test Pyramid.” When implemented as a code development process, this framework drastically shortens the testing feedback loop and enables our engineers to build with confidence. 

Duration: approximately 38 weeks

Launch and beyond is the future of our partnership with the Steamship Authority. 

After launch, our first priority will be to bring the platform to you and solicit your feedback. The first three months after site launch will be a critical time to record use and make important updates to the site. Technology is always evolving, and our plan is to incorporate changes and feedback in an iterative manner. 

Prior Sprint Reports 

Sprint close: August 30, 2023

Past two weeks

<p data-renderer-start-pos="49">The Stellar Elements technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 42:

• Headstart
• Website pages / content management system entries, including:
  • Onboarding Tutorial (Transparent Overlay) - Web
  • Contact Us Page Functionality
  • Update Tool Tip Language
• Wait list
• Notifications/Emails:
  • Visitor alerts updates
  • Feature/notifications
• My notifications UI
  • Wire my notifications page
  • Wire notifications to endpoints
  • Travel Advisories
• Reservations:
  • Past reservations user interface 
  • Reservation details sidebar widgets
• eFerry:
  • Update eFerry ticket purchase and add to wallet button
  • Site/App Search
  • Bug Fixes
• Checkout:
  • Change cart timeout 

Purchase confirmation email for reservations/tickets

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 43, August 31 2023 – September 13, 2023

<li data-renderer-start-pos="2394">Mobile app specific updates <li data-renderer-start-pos="2425">Site advertising <li data-renderer-start-pos="2425">Automated content migration  <li data-renderer-start-pos="2425">Bug fixes

Sprint close: August 16, 2023

Past two weeks

<p data-renderer-start-pos="49">The Stellar Elements technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 41:

<ul data-indent-level="1">

purchase eFerry ticket as a guest <ul data-indent-level="3">

update eFerry ticket purchase and add to wallet button

Wire reload gift card

Implement recaptcha

Copy updates to payment details in the booking flow

Copy updates throughout the site

fix open pending reservation initial editing fill date

booking bar copy updates based on feedback

updated cancellation messaging logic

past reservations user interface

<ul data-indent-level="1">

waitlist copy updates

Notification lite menu

Sprint close: August 2, 2023

Past two weeks

The Stellar Elements technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 40:

• Content updates

  • Reservation details sidebar widgets

  • Changed Boarding Assistance Support Card content in reservation summary

  • Updated the booking bar on the homepage to be moved down below video

  • Updated link in sidenav to fix timeout issue

    • Added blur on background images while they load in so it’s not as jarring

• Added bottom navigation to mobile logged-in users

• Added balanceDue chip to future reservations

• Show unavailable reservations in trip list

• Removed the reactivate button to timeout expired, but added in the “Keep cart” button

• Gift cards

  • Ability to remove gift cards from a reservation

  • Ability to apply gift cards

Sprint close: July 19, 2023

Past two weeks

<p data-renderer-start-pos="49">The Stellar Elements technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 39:

<ul data-indent-level="1">

Holdspace timer

Waitlist 

Updates to reservation and ticket book cancellations

Purchase gift cards

Published content 

Managing visitor alerts

Show expired coupons

Bug fixes

Demo feedback

HTML emails

Sprint close: July 5, 2023

The Stellar Elements (formerly ADK Group and Projekt202) technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 38:

• Homepage CMS Updates

  • Video

  • Heads up component

  • Page builder

• Reservation UI updates

  • Ferry type (high-speed vs traditional)

  • Balance Due

• RFID Card images

• Paying for reservations with a balance due

• Canceling ticket books and receiving a refund

• Sharing reservations

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 39, July 6, 2023 – July 19, 2023

• Demo feedback

• Non-logged-in users signing up for alerts

• Logged-in notifications

• Credit available

• Adding in holdSpace timer

• Gift card payments

• Transferring and canceling eFerry tickets

• Mobile app issues, including how to integrate deep links and biometric login

Sprint close: June 21, 2023

Past two weeks

Sprint close: June 7, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 36:

• Reloading RFID cards

• Alerts

  • Sign up for alerts; get email by pin

  • Manage email preferences by pin

  • Turn off alerts

• Cancelling reservations

  • Updated logic to when a user can cancel and the warning/error messages throughout

• Open reservations

  • Allow users to edit/select legs of their trips in their open reservations

• Share a reservation/eFerry ticket by email

  • endpoints and UI is done; still need to wire it up

• Waitlist

  • Cancel/remove a waitlist request from a reservation

• Previous Reservations in dashboar

  Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 37, June 8, 2023 – June 21, 2023

  • Updates to checkout page

    • Apple Pay + Google Pay coming soon

    • Allow users to edit their reservation from the summary

  • Reservation statuses

    • UI updates for “Credit available” and “Balance due” statuses

    • Displaying open or pending reservations

  • Checkout flow timer

    • UI to warn a user when their holdSpace is going to expire

    • API to keep track of the timer for each reservationID or cartID

  • RFID Cards

    • Updating the policy for expired RFID cards and when they expire

  • Email templates

Sprint close: May 24, 2023

Past two weeks

<p data-renderer-start-pos="49">The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 35:

<ul type="disc" data-indent-level="1">

Reservations <ul type="circle" data-indent-level="2">

Users can now cancel vehicle reservations and get a refund.

Added bikes to reservation summary

Waitlist <ul type="circle" data-indent-level="2">

Users can now cancel waitlist requests 

Multiride RFID Cards <ul type="circle" data-indent-level="2">

Users can now reload their RFID cards 

Users can now unlink RFID cards from their account

Users can now give their RFID cards nicknames or rename them

eFerry <ul type="circle" data-indent-level="2">

The flow to cancel eFerry tickets is hooked up

Content <ul type="circle" data-indent-level="2">

Table component

Location chip

Blog list

Lots of content entry

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 36, May 25, 2023 – June 7, 2023

<ul type="disc" data-indent-level="1">

Working on cancelling eFerry tickets and ticket books

Gift cards

Timer/timeout implementation for holding space during the reservation flow

Pending and balance due statuses on reservations

Sprint close: May 10, 2023

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 34:

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="120">Editing Vehicle Reservations
  <ul class="ak-ul" data-indent-level="2">
• <p data-renderer-start-pos="152">changing date/time

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="174">changing passengers

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="197">changing vehicle add-ons

<p data-renderer-start-pos="227">Waitlist

<ul class="ak-ul" data-indent-level="2">

<p data-renderer-start-pos="239">Request a waitlist with pending status

<p data-renderer-start-pos="281">Find existing availability in open window

<p data-renderer-start-pos="328">QR codes in existing reservations on mobile

<p data-renderer-start-pos="375">Print stylesheet

<p data-renderer-start-pos="395">Cookie Banner

<p data-renderer-start-pos="412">Lots of content updates

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 35, May 11, 2023 – May 24, 2023

<p data-renderer-start-pos="597">The ADK technology team will be working on the following items:

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="477">Functionality for logged out users, including managing travel alerts and RFID cards

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="477">Web analytics

• <p data-renderer-start-pos="619">Customer notification menu

Sprint close: April 26, 2023

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 33:

• Adding templates for blog entries and the governance pages to the content management system 
• Reservations

  • Print stylesheet - users can print their reservation details

  • Dynamic QR Code generation - can scan the code from the mobile web or mobile app

  • Edit passengers on reservations

  • Edit datetime on future reservation

Sprint close: April 12, 2023

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 32:

• Adding more components and the blog template to the content management system
• Reservations
  • Give aliases from dashboard and purchase summaries
  • Show vehicle dimensions in every drawer
  • eFerry tickets now linked to accounts
• Holding space
  • update to vehicle ticket books; can now remove them from reservations
• Purchases
  • Purchase ticket books
  • Purchase eFerry tickets

Sprint Close: March 29, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 31:

• Credit card payments
• Edit & remove cart items
<li data-renderer-start-pos="208">Content management system updates <li data-renderer-start-pos="208">Product purchase summaries for eFerry tickets and ticket books  <li data-renderer-start-pos="208">API updates for credit card payments, eFerry purchases, and removing coupon books from reservations <li data-renderer-start-pos="208">Bug fixes

Sprint Close: March 15, 2023

Past two weeks

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 31, March 16, 2023 - March 29, 2023

Sprint Close: March 1, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 29:

• API
  • Apply coupon books (one-way and round-trip)
  • Ticket books implementation in certain scenarios
  • Zero balance checkout
• Frontend - focused on the hold space flow
• Storyblok (content management system) 
  • Bridge connection established
  • Continue to wire components to page builder

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 30, March 2, 2023 - March 15, 2023

The ADK technology team will be working on the following items:

• Checkout
• Editing Cart
• Alerts
• Editing Cart
• Purchasing confirmation
• Renaming and resetting reservation names

Sprint close: February 15, 2023

Past two weeks:

The ADK technology team worked on the following items in Sprint 28:

• Parking Permits: Display Collection
• Program Management: Display my active programs
• Multiride Cards: link new card
• Communication Preferences: General Travel Advisories
• Checkout: Use Ticket Book
• Reservations: Complete wiring up details (previously missing pricing information)
• Reservations: Rename Reservation with an Alias/Nickname
• Complete Purchase: Purchase Summary
• Continuing to update site content

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 29, February 16, 2023 - March 1, 2023

The ADK technology team will be working on the following items:

• Bug fixes
• Demo feedback updates
• Account Creation: First-Time User Onboarding
• Leg Selection: Availability & Date Selection

Sprint close: February 1, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team integrated the hold space functionality for traditional and fast ferry summaries. Work continued on setting up the content management system as well as editing content for the website and mobile app.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 28, February 2, 2023 - February 15, 2023

The ADK technology team will be working on the following items:

• Parking Permits: Display Collection
• Program Management: Display my active programs
• Multiride Cards: link new card
• Communication Preferences: General Travel Advisories 
• Checkout: Use Ticket Book
• Reservations: Complete wiring up details
• Reservations: Rename Reservation with an Alias / Nickname
• Complete Purchase: Purchase Summary
• Continuing to update site content

Sprint Close: January 18, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team worked to finalize account management features, which included the ability to update address and phone numbers, and the selecting and updating of travel and communication preferences. They also began to frame out the content management system and continued to refine the hold space functionality.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 27, January 19, 2023 - February 1, 2023

The ADK technology team intends to integrate the hold space functionality for traditional and fast ferries. Work will continue on setting up the content management system as well as editing content for the website and mobile app.

Sprint close: January 4, 2023

Past two weeks

The ADK technology team focused on getting the Hold Space functionality working as well as completing the work committed to in Sprint 24 before continuing on to any new work due to the holidays and vacations.

Sprint close: December 21, 2022

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 26, January 5, 2023 - January 18, 2023

The ADK technology team will work to finalize account management feature which includes the ability to update address and phone numbers, selecting and updating of travel and communication preferences, begin to frame out the CMS, and continue to work on the Hold Space functionality.

Sprint close: December 21, 2022

Past two weeks

Back-end work will continue on the trip availability, get reservation by ID, available trips by day, vehicle lookup, and trip availability by date range APIs. Meanwhile, the front-end team will be coding the features that the back-end team has completed.

As time allows this sprint, the team will also be diving into the CMS and begin adding components and content.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 25, December 22, 2022 – January 5, 2023

The ADK technology team will be focusing on getting the hold space functionality working, as well as completing the work committed to in Sprint 24 before starting anything new since it is a short sprint.

Sprint close: December 7, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK back-end technology team continued to work on implementing endpoints around managing a user’s profile and preferences, as well as all things reservations. This included reservation availability, selecting reservation legs/segments, interacting with the waitlist, and reservation details and summary.

The ADK front-end technology team pivoted from wiring the front end of the site up to the API while the back-end team catches up and will start to focus efforts on building out the content management system, Storyblok, including setting up content types, data models, permissions, workflows, etc., as well as composing the front-end building blocks such as image galleries, video players, pull quotes, rich text, etc., that will eventually be connected to the front end.

The ADK quality assurance team will continue to validate user stories against acceptance criteria for both the API and front end, as well as start to investigate some performance/load testing. The team also plans on working closely with the internal Steamship Authority API team on implementing automated testing to improve stability on the internal end.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 24, December 8, 2022 – December 21, 2022

The ADK technology team will be wrapping up profile and preferences this sprint. To complete this feature, the back-end team will be focusing on implementation of previous purchases, updating addresses and phone numbers, and travel settings APIs. The front-end technology team will be focusing on the ability to edit contact information, program management, as well as ADA compliance of these features.

Back-end work will continue on the reservations feature, specifically APIs for trip availability, get reservation by ID, available trips by day, vehicle lookup, and trip availability. Meanwhile, the front-end team will be coding the features that the back-end team has completed.

As time allows this sprint, the team will also be diving into the content management system and begin adding components and content.

Sprint close: November 23, 2022

Past two weeks

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 23, November 24, 2022 – December 7, 2022

Sprint close: November 9, 2022

Past two weeks

Design: The content architect continued to curate content for blog posts as well as resident program landing pages for both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The lead designer reviewed photography and videography from the photo shoots in order to provide recommendations for which to be used on the website.

Technology: The ADK Technology team focused on updates to booking bar – specifically updating vehicle API and being able to do trip availability by date range and the ability to search for a reservation and showing the reservation summary.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 22, November 10, 2022 - November 24, 2022

Design: Content curation and photo/video review will continue. 

Technology: The ADK Technology team will be working on making advancements to the API by cleaning up endpoints, improving stability, and working on the ability for users to hold ferry space in their cart. Our frontend engineers will be working on wiring the front-end user interface up to real data from the API, including the trip availability calendar, selecting legs of a trip for their selected days, and pulling specific reservation information by a unique identifier. We will also be working on payment gateway proof of concept prototypes, as well as a possible open-source content management system.

Sprint Close: October 26, 2022

Past two weeks 

Design: The content architect curated content for blog posts as well as resident programs landing pages for both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The lead designer reviewed photography and videography from the summer photo shoot in order to provide recommendations for which to be used on the website.

Technology: The ADK Technology team focused on profile management. This included the profile & preferences landing page, the ability to review receipts of purchases, manage personal information, travel settings, communications preferences, program management, apply for new programs, add a vehicle to profile and management of existing vehicles.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 21, October 27, 2022 - November 9, 2022

Design: The content architect will be curating content for blog posts as well as resident programs landing pages for both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The lead designer will be reviewing photography and videography from the summer photo shoot in order to provide recommendations for which to be used on the website.

Sprint Close: October 12, 2022

Past two weeks

Design: The ADK Design team continued to QA the designs coded by the technology team for accuracy, updated any designs that the client has given feedback on, review visual assets from photo shoots, and documented what will be needed for video on the homepage. Content focused their time this sprint on revisions to any pages, continued content for residential discount pages, blog post contents, internal calls to action, and tool tip content.

Technology: The ADK Technology front-end team wired the local weather to current status component, wired the standby status drawer and its component, updated the create account drawer, created the Governance pages, health-check fail alerts, connected password reset to the backend, updated to the create account login redirect, and bug fixes. The back-end team primarily worked on coding the get user accounts for serverless dashboard, creating account error handling and bug fixes.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 20, October 13, 2022 - October 26, 2022

Design: The content architect will be curating content for blog posts as well as resident programs landing pages for both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The lead designer will be reviewing photography and videography from the summer photo shoot in order to provide recommendations for which images will be used on the website. Technology: The ADK Technology team will be focusing on profile management. This will include the profile & preferences landing page, the ability to review receipts of purchases, manage personal information, travel settings, communications preferences, program management, apply for new programs, add a vehicle to profile and management of existing vehicles.

Sprint Close: September 28, 2022

Design: The ADK Design team has ended their time on the project. They have checked the designs coded by the technology team for accuracy, updated any designs that the client had given feedback on, reviewed visual assets from photo shoots, and documented what was needed for video on the homepage. Content continued and focused on revisions to any pages previously submitted to the client. Also, continued on the discount details, all program landing pages, and content for the following blog posts: lost and found, safety and security, change/cancel reservations, and things to do for both islands.

Technology: The ADK Technology front-end team coded the Governances pages, Account pages for programs, ability to rename reservations, pending cancellation icon, the ability to purchase, reload, and check gift card balances, the ability to share your eFerry ticket reservation information, logout functionality and bug fixes. The back-end team focused on coupon books, booking dates, local weather and bug fixes. Research was done on Storyblok regarding monitoring and logging.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 19, September 29, 2022 - October 12, 2022

Design: The ADK Design team will continue to perform quality assurance on the designs coded by the technology team for accuracy, update any designs that the client has given feedback on, review visual assets from photo shoots, and document what may be needed for video on the homepage. Content will focus their time this sprint on revisions to any pages, continued content for residential discount pages, blog post contents, internal calls to action, and tool tip content.

Technology: The ADK Technology front-end team will be wiring the local weather to current status component, wiring the standby status drawer and its component, updating the create account drawer, creating the Governance pages, health-check fail alerts, connection of password reset to the backend, updates to the create account login redirect, and bug fixes. The back-end team will be primarily working on coding the get user accounts for serverless dashboard, creating account error handling and bug fixes.

Sprint Close: September 14, 2022

Design: The ADK Design team quality checked coded designs from the technology team and updated any designs as requested by the client. They also reviewed the final visual assets to marketing page designs, if available. Content revisions were made based on client feedback. Technology: The ADK Technology team worked on the Governance landing pages, including the hero, news ticker, topics, and featured blogs, while also wrapping up the account related pages, including my programs, renaming reservations, share eFerry tickets, communications preferences, and account-specific settings. They also focused on bug fixes.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 18, September 15, 2022 - September 28, 2022

Design: The ADK Design team has primarily ended their time on the project. With the time that is remaining, they will be quality checking the designs coded by the technology team for accuracy, updating any designs that the client has given feedback on, reviewing visual assets from photo shoots, and documenting what may be needed for video on the homepage. Content creation, however, will continue and will focus on revisions to any pages previously submitted to the client. Focus will continue on the discount details, all program landing pages, and content for the follow blog posts: lost and found, safety and security, change/cancel reservations, and things to do for both islands. Technology: The ADK Technology front-end team will be coding the Governance pages, account pages for programs, ability to rename reservations, the pending cancellation icon, the ability to purchase, reload, and check gift card balances, the ability to share your eFerry ticket reservation information, logout functionality, and bug fixes. The back-end team will be focusing on coupon books, booking dates, local weather and bug fixes. 

Sprint close: August 31, 2022

Design: The ADK design team quality checked the final pages and made any updates as needed, added final assets to the homepage design, and continued with the marketing page design. The content strategist made final revisions to the careers, contact, accommodation partners, and advertising pages. In parallel, content strategy created a plan for blog releases, continued with content for the discount detail pages, and began blog post content for standby and waitlist. The team also reviewed photo/video input from the contracted vendors and finalized the call to action library.

Technology: The ADK front-end and back-end technology teams focused on completing development efforts and provided an in person demonstration to the Steamship Authority team. This consisted of global components such as the header, side navigation and footer, homepage progression including the work-in-progress hero, traveling today section, call-to-action, featured blog posts, and ads. The demo also included the fares & discounts page, login, the reservation dashboard, user preferences and logging out. Back-end work was completed after demo preparations will include email PIN, get reservation by, and get email preferences.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 17, September 1, 2022 - September 14, 2022

Design: The ADK Design team will be quality checking coded designs from the technology team and update any designs as requested by the client. They will also review the final visual assets to marketing page designs, if available. Content revisions will be made based on client feedback.

Technology: The ADK technology team will be working on the Governance landing pages, including the hero, news ticker, topics and featured blogs while also wrapping up the account related pages including my programs rename reservations UI, Share eFerry UI, communications preferences, and account-specific settings. They also will focus on bug fixes.

Sprint close: August 17, 2022

Design: The ADK design team continued iterations on the homepage designs based on feedback provided from the Steamship Authority. Work included finalization of the mobile app designs as well as alerts functionality; design of any outstanding components/pages/states; the accommodations program ticket flow; marketing page designs including the about, what to do, and fares and discounts sections. The design team also is working on the advertising strategy, including creating documentation regarding which calls to actions would be required and for which pages throughout the website. Advertisement guidelines were constructed as part of this effort.

Technology: The ADK front-end technology team worked on empty states, user preferences, component dependencies, and low-risk homepage components. The back-end technology team spec’d out and wrote tests for endpoints currently implemented internally, began to work on caching strategy for the API gateway to improve performance for intensive endpoints, and implementations for currently documented endpoints.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 16, August 18, 2022 - August 31, 2022

Design: The ADK design team will quality check final pages and make any updates as needed, add final assets to the homepage design, and continue with the marketing page design. The content strategist will be making final revisions to the careers, contact, accommodation partners and advertising pages. In parallel, content strategy will create a plan for blog releases, continue with content for the discount detail pages and begin blog post content for standby and waitlist. The team will also review photo/video input from the contracted vendors and finalize the call to action library.

Technology: The ADK front-end and back-end technology teams will focusing on completing development efforts in order to provide an in person demonstration. This will consist of global components such as the header, side navigation and footer, homepage progression including the work-in-progress hero, traveling today section, call-to-action, featured blog posts, and ads. The demo will also include the fares & discounts page, login, the reservation dashboard, user preferences and logging out. Back-end work to be completed after demo preparations will include email PIN, get reservation by, and get email preferences.

Sprint Close: August 3, 2022

Design: The ADK design team reviewed the homepage and freight screens and sought approval to move those along to the technology team. The team also be reviewed the homepage designs with the larger Steamship Authority team to elicit feedback and incorporate as appropriate. Alert designs and functionality were finalized while continuing documentation. Designs for empty states and unhappy paths began while continuing on the marketing pages, content pages, and site content strategy. Completion of designs for the mobile app will commence and any user testing was coordinated to ensure the app designs are user friendly. The design team also worked on the advertising strategy. This work will consist of creating documentation regarding which calls to actions will be required and for which pages throughout the website. Advertisement guidelines will also be constructed as part of this effort.

Technology: The ADK front-end technology team concentrated on the logged-in passenger eFerry e-tickets page, eFerry destination tabs, eFerry ticket cards components, ticket books and multiride card pages, multiride card components, profile creation, gift card management, and user preferences dashboard. The back-end technology team began coding on multiride card details, ticket book details, notification and communication preferences, date range availability and trip selection. Site content strategy also progressed, focusing on page revisions, advertise with us, accommodations program, discount detail pages, discount content and any tertiary pages.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 15, August 4, 2022 - August 17, 2022

Design: The ADK design team will continue iterations on the homepage designs based on feedback provided from the SSA. Finalization of the mobile app designs will progress, as well as alerts functionality, design of any outstanding components/pages/states, accommodations program ticket flow, and marketing page designs, including the about section, what to do, and fares and discounts. The design team is working on the advertising strategy. This work will consist of creating documentation regarding which calls to actions will be required and for which pages throughout the website. Advertisement guidelines will also be constructed as part of this effort. This work is continuing from sprints 13 and 14.

Technology: The ADK front-end technology team will work on empty states, user preferences, component dependencies, and low-risk homepage components. The back-end technology team will spec out and write tests for endpoints currently implemented internally, begin to work on caching strategy for the application programming interface (API) gateway to improve performance for intensive endpoints, and implementations for currently documented endpoints.

Sprint Close: July 20, 2022

Design: The ADK design team made progress on the mobile app, refining the homepage and marketing-related page designs, which include schedules, parking, directions, the about section, what to do, fares and discounts, and the events calendar. In parallel, designs for the freight experience commenced. Content strategy for the site advanced with the about section, what to do, and events for both islands, discounts and fares, advertising, accommodations, tertiary pages, and the creation of proposed release plan for the blog. The team finalized the checklist for photography and videography assets to be taken by the chosen vendors. Lastly, the advertising and call-to-action strategies was started and will continue into sprint 14.

Technology: The ADK technology team continued to focus on various facets of the site, including front-end work on reservations, persistent login technology, account management, and security. Accessibility audits were completed on the main header, side navigation bar, main footer and the booking bar. Backend API development on forgot password, reset password, and the quality-assurance pipeline were a concentration during sprint 13. The technology team also looked into a new approach for the mobile app as an alternative to GoNative that will not require a third-party company.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 15, July 21, 2022 – August 3, 2022

Design: The ADK design team will review the homepage and freight screens and seek approval to move those along to the technology team. The team will also be reviewing the homepage designs with the larger Steamship Authority team to elicit feedback and incorporate as appropriate. Alert designs and functionality will be finalized while continuing documentation. Designs for empty states and unhappy paths will begin while continuing on the marketing pages, content pages, and site content strategy. Completion of designs for the mobile app will commence and any user testing will be coordinated to ensure the app designs are user friendly. 

Technology: The ADK front-end technology team will concentrate on the logged-in passenger eFerry e-tickets page, eFerry destination tabs, eFerry ticket cards components, ticket books & multi-ride card pages, multiride card components, profile creation, gift card management as well as user preferences dashboard. The backend technology team will begin coding on multiride card details, ticket book details, notification and communication preferences, date range availability, and trip selection. Development may begin on the mobile app depending on the design progression and user testing conducted. This will include onboarding flow prototype and custom navigation tabs.

Sprint Close: July 6, 2022

Design: The ADK design team continued with the account and booking flows, design of the blog pages, marketing pages, and crafting site content. Design work began for the mobile app, including running user testing and the site homepage. The team finalized the alert types designs, made a first pass at compiling the photo and video assets needs, and a call-to-action strategy for advertising.

Technology: The ADK technology team researched tickets specific to merging accounts, creating and deleting accounts and personalization based on first-part user data. Back-end work took place for password management, including forgot password and password reset functionality; and account features, including parking permits and multiride cards. Front-end work included forgot password components, building of a grid system, updates to the booking flow bar, and scaffolding out the blog pages. The creation of blog content models and planning out of the blog content page builder will be executed in the content management system.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 13, July 7, 2022 – July 20, 2022

Sprint close: June 22, 2022

Design: The ADK design team worked on several aspects of the website during this sprint. For the account functionality within the site, designs were executed for profile/preferences, adding a gift card, freight, and refinements to the user interface design. In the booking flow, designs for logging in and signing up for an account and wait listing continued. For both of these features, the designs were for both desktop and mobile. The team took a first pass at the site home page and blog page. Work also continued on alerts, and the team began to create documentation around the call-to-action strategy for advertisements and what pages they will live on. >Technology: The ADK technology team began to start ingesting the work from the application programming interface (API) gateway on the front end for the website. This includes the logging-in functionality, as well as some reservation dashboard work including future trips, past trips, and ticket books.

The API team worked on creating endpoints for vessel metadata as well as multiride cards. The team also worked on writing automated tests and pipelines to automatically generate documentation.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 12, June 23, 2022 – July 6, 2022

Design: The ADK design team aims to continue work with the account and booking flows, design of the blog pages, marketing pages, and crafting site content. Design work will begin for the mobile app, including running user testing, and the site homepage. The team will finalize the alert types designs, first pass at compiling the photo and video assets needs, and a call-to-action strategy for advertising. Technology: The ADK technology team will be researching tickets specific to merging accounts, creating and deleting accounts, and personalization based on first-part user data. Backend work will take place for password management, including forgot password and password reset functionality, and account features, including parking permits and multi-ride cards. Frontend work will include forgot password components, building of a grid system, updates to the booking flow bar, and scaffolding out the blog pages. The creation of blog content models and planning out of the blog content page builder will be executed in Contentful, the new content management system for the website. 

Sprint Close: June 8, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK design team worked to finalize the account flow, which included section content, user interface refinement, the freight view and the mobile app dashboard, as well as finalizing of the booking flow, which includes logging in and creating a new account, inclusion of the waitlist, and all mobile screens. Work continued with marketing prototypes for schedules, fares and discounts, parking and direction and the operations sections. Designs were started for the "what to do" and "about" sections, site search, any tertiary page needs, alerts, and the mobile app. 

The ADK technology team continued to make headway on the implementation of the API gateway, including working on new endpoints for future reservations, past reservations, as well as eFerry tickets. The team also conducted research on implementing third-party login providers. The front-end development began to implement accessibility audits and features like appropriate color contrast and keyboard navigation. Development of the main navigation, booking bar, and footer components continued. The setup of development, staging, and user-acceptance testing environments began. 

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 11, June 9, 2022 – June 22, 2022

Design

For the account functionality within the site, designs will be executed for profile/preferences, adding a gift card, any refinements to the user interface design, and freight. In the booking flow, designs for logging in and signing up for an account, and waitlist will continue. For both of these features, the designs will be for both desktop and mobile. The team plans to take a first pass at the site home page and blog page. Work will also continue on alerts, and the team plans to create documentation around the call to action strategy for advertisements and what pages they will live on.

Technology

The ADK technology team will begin to start ingesting the work from the API gateway on the frontend for the website. This will include logging in functionality, as well as some reservation dashboard work including future trips, past trips, and ticket books. The API team will work on creating endpoints for vessel metadata as well as multiride cards. The team will also be working on writing automated tests and pipelines to automatically generate documentation. 

Sprint Close: May 25, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK design team continued with the marketing page designs, focusing on schedules, fares and discounts, parking and direction and the operations sections. The ADK technology team developed the fares and discounts components, started developing the dashboard prototypes for logged-in states, and regroup on the progressive web app strategy and implementation based on the approved designs.

Work will begin on the about, what to do, blog, and site search sections. Meanwhile, the team will finalize the high priority features (account, waitlist, and booking flow) and begin translating to the mobile app experience.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 10, May 26, 2022 – June 8, 2022

Design

The ADK design team will finalize the account flow, which includes section content, user interface refinement, freight view and the mobile app dashboard, as well as finalization of the booking flow, which includes logging in and creating a new account, inclusion of the waitlist, and all mobile screens. Work will continue with marketing prototypes for schedules, fares and discounts, parking and direction and the operations sections. Designs will be started for the what to do and about sections, site search, any tertiary page needs, alerts and the mobile app. Testing will be completed for the booking flow and dashboard by the QA team.

Technology

The ADK technology team will continue to make headway on implementation of the API gateway. The team will be scaffolding out new endpoints for future reservations, past reservations, as well as eFerry tickets. The team will also be conducting some research on implementing third-party login providers, such as Facebook and Google.

The front-end development will begin to implement accessibility audits and features like appropriate color contrast and keyboard navigation. The team is also wrapping up development of the main navigation, booking bar, and footer components.

Lastly, the team will begin to setup true dev, staging, and user-acceptance testing environments, as well as various third-party accounts.

Sprint close: May 13, 2022

The ADK design team continued working on the fares and discounts prototypes, as well as dashboard updates; user tests; profiles and logging in; and updates to the dashboard, which includes payments and check out. Work began on the designs for the marketing and informational pages, which includes schedules and parking/direction information. The content and design team also reviewed progress on the operational section pages with Steamship Authority, gathered feedback, and began updates to it. Content strategy began working on copy on client-approved pages.

The ADK technology team accomplished setting up the SSL certificates and CNAMEs, set up email service and contact forms, logins and persistent state management, and began to pull user data into the prototypes for the API gateway subdomain. The technology team also started pulling user data into the prototypes and global content-managed elements via Contentful, the content management system for the new website. The engineering team began building high-fidelity pages.

During Sprint 8, the ADK team met with the Steamship Authority team for a two-day on-site walkthrough of the facilities and to gain additional context from the staff. The ADK team found this extremely beneficial to the process because it put the mechanics of the operations into context. Many different aspects of the day-to-day activities were reviewed such as parking, ticketing, loading vehicles, and shadowing customer service agents among many more. The ADK team took copious notes and will use the information obtained to refine flows and create new tickets. The Steamship Authority team was extremely helpful in sharing and made sure the ADK team felt welcomed.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 9, May 13, 2022 – May 25, 2022

The ADK technology team will develop the fares and discounts components, start developing the dashboard prototypes for logged-in states and regroup on the progressive web app strategy and implementation based on the approved designs. The ADK design team will continue with the marketing page designs, focusing on schedules, fares and discounts, parking and direction and the operations sections.

Work will begin on the about, what to do, blog, and site search sections. Meanwhile, the team will finalize the high-priority features (account, waitlist, and booking flow) and begin translating to the mobile app experience.

Sprint close: April 27, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK Group design team continued with dashboard and profile management designs and began work on the fares and discounts marketing site as well as creating profile and log-in prototypes. User testing was run in parallel for these features to gain feedback to integrate into those designs. The ADK technology team facilitated a demonstration of the Contentful content management system to the Steamship Authority team, who had the opportunity to ask questions and get better acquainted with the tool. A reservation prototype was built using semi-real data so that the site can be used in a real-world capacity.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 8, April 28, 2022 – May 11, 2022

The ADK design team will continue working on the fares and discounts marketing site prototypes and begin work on the marketing prototypes, operation section pages, profile/logging in and dashboard updates. User testing will continue on an as-needed basis for the aforementioned features. A component workshop will be held between the ADK design and technology teams to align on the items in development.

The ADK technology team will also begin work on the my account/reservation dashboard, which will build a persistent logged-in state, and begin to manage features within a user’s account. Work will begin on the API gateway, which will allow for email service setup and contact forms, login, and persistent state management. Pulling of real content into the prototypes will be done in Contentful, along with management of global components.

Sprint close: April 13, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK design team put together prototypes for the booking flow process. Using these prototypes, the booking flow was demonstrated to the Steamship Authority team to elicit responses as well as to conduct user testing sessions to gain a sense of both back- and front-end user understanding to ensure the feedback is incorporated for the best possible experience. The ADK technology team was able to complete development of the booking bar web and mobile prototypes. Indexing of vehicle year, makes, and models for selection during the booking process, as well as the API caching strategy and Contact Us API endpoints, was completed.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 7, April 14, 2022 – April 27, 2022

The ADK team plans to continue forward iterating on the booking flow designs as well as beginning to work on the fares and discounts flow much in the same way it was done during Sprint 6 by obtaining assessments from both the SSA team as well as users. The ADK technology team will be building out the booking flow and account creation prototypes for both the desktop and mobile versions.

Sprint close: March 30, 2022

Past two weeks

The ADK design team worked on building the site map, which will allow the technology team to begin development of the website. User testing sessions were held between ADK and the Steamship Authority to review wireframes of the mobile approach in order to glean feedback on the process and flow to move forward on designs. The ADK technology team met with Steamship Authority team to review both the Contentful content management system and mobile app strategy, both of which have been approved and will be moving forward.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 6, March 31, 2022 – April 13, 2022

The user experience (UX) team will validate the sitemap through user testing, use the results to refine a solution and, pending approval, will support the build of the designs led by the engineering team. In parallel, the UX team will run this iterative prototyping and refinement cycle on other key parts of the experience, beginning with the checkout/purchase/reservation flow. The ADK technology team intends to provide a live preview of Contentful, including the framework for a “clickable” website with a header, footer and login. In parallel, the team will continue to the documentation process for the APIs.

Sprint close: March 16, 2022

Past Two Weeks

During Sprint 4, the ADK design team diligently assessed all of the information gathered during various workshops and meetings with the Steamship Authority team and put together style tiles, which put visualization behind different aspects of the new website such as fonts, iconography, color schemes and button shapes. Significant progress was also made on zone diagrams, as well as a documented plan of attack for recruiting users for testing and reviewing and comparing analytics options. In parallel, the ADK technology team validated prototypes of push notifications in GoNative for the mobile application; documented development and design workflows; discussed making the SSA API public; and discussed setting up Amazon Web Services.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 5, March 17, 2022 – March 30, 2022

Sprint 5 will be spent with the ADK design team putting the style tiles to work and beginning the testing of the reservation booking flow proof of concept with the SSA team using the desktop user interface. ADK will also begin building the user dashboard/logged in concept flow for mobile. The ADK technology team will be researching analytics options, digital wallets for tickets, and setting up the CMS tool.

Sprint close: March 2, 2022

Past Two Weeks

The ADK Group design team put together and reviewed the future state mapping with the Steamship Authority team, which helped glean an understanding of the flow and mechanics of the existing site, in addition to including future features. The development team also gave their own presentation regarding content management system (CMS) recommendations. The team put forth information regarding a content management system named Contentful as the content management system of choice and outlined the various feature sets and benefits to its use. The larger ADK team presented the entire Revealing Reality phase findings to the Steamship Authority team to great reception. Both teams are in alignment with the findings as well as the planned path forward for the Focused Innovation phase.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 4, March 3, 2022 – March 16, 2022

Sprint 4 will kick off the Focused Innovation phase. The ADK design team is eager to get started on a host of materials, including but not limited to user interface (UI) kit creation, style tile creation, rapid prototyping, user interviews and zone diagramming. In parallel, the development team will be working toward the completion of the documentation for the application programming interfaces, or APIs, that will be used to connect the website to the SSA's computer systems; finalizing the mobile app implementation strategy; completing the front-end library and design system; and establishing strong foundational codebases (front-end, keys, etc.) for the website, operational subdomain and reservation dashboard. 

Sprint close: Feb. 16, 2022

Past Two Weeks

The design team has been working hard at putting together current and future state mapping documentation; the former was reviewed with the SSA team. We also held a Visual Voice workshop in order to gain a better understanding of the look and feel for the revamped site. The technical team has been working equally hard documenting APIs. The team is currently working on putting together all of the Discovery Phase findings into a presentation to share with the Authority. The team also worked diligently on analytics and SEO/content work and held an interviewing session with the SSA HR department.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 3 Feb. 17, 2022 - March 3, 2022

The design team is going to be wrapping up their discovery and continue correlating the data they’ve compiled into the slide deck for an SSA presentation while continuing to make progress on the future state mapping documentation. Meanwhile, the technical team will continue to research the APIs. They will also be compiling recommendations with paths forward regarding front- and back-end technologies and what will be best suited for this project. These findings will also be added to the discovery presentation deck. Additionally, the team is developing a working draft of the Vision, Strategy, and Opportunities with supporting facts, findings and data. These will be reviewed with the Authority, along with a framework for benchmarking and measuring success, before being finalized then executed on in the next phase, Focused Innovation.

Sprint close: Feb. 2, 2022

Past Two Weeks

In the inaugural two-week sprint of our Revealing Reality phase, we worked towards understanding the requirements, APIs, data models, and user personas. Together with the Authority, we held seven working sessions to discuss everything from business needs to the Authority’s technical ecosystem. In addition, our technical team conducted peer analysis and performance benchmarking.

Upcoming Project Goals: Sprint 2 Feb. 3, 2022 - Feb. 16, 2022

The team will continue work in the Revealing Reality phase. We will take a deeper dive into user journeys, begin creation of high-level concepts and hold a visual voice workshop to define core look-and-feel of the digital experience.

News release: Website redesign & app development project begins

FALMOUTH (February 2, 2022) – The Woods Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority and ADK Group of Boston have begun the year-long project to redesign the Authority’s website, www.steamshipauthority.com, and develop the Authority’s first mobile application. Click here for more.