Making a growing application landscape easier to navigate
PT Frisian Flag Indonesia (FFI), also known as “Susu Bendera,” has supported the nutritional needs of Indonesian families since 1992. As an established dairy and nutrition company, FFI relies on many digital applications to support its business operations.
Over time, however, a growing number of applications can create a new problem. Employees may know that a tool exists but not where to find it, which application is relevant to a particular task, or how to move between systems without unnecessary searching.
FFI partnered with Suitmedia to develop a portal that could serve as a clearer entry point to its internal applications. The project focused on research-led user experience design, prototyping, testing, and frontend implementation, helping FFI create a more accessible and consistent digital workplace.
More applications had created more places to search
1. The company’s digital growth had increased navigation effort
FFI has accumulated multiple applications to support different business processes. Each tool may have been useful in its own context, but employees needed a practical way to access the right one at the right time.
Without a central portal, users may rely on bookmarks, internal messages, personal memory, or help from colleagues. These workarounds can function for a while, but they become harder to manage as the number of applications grows and employees move between roles or responsibilities.
The problem was therefore not a lack of digital capability. FFI had many tools available. The issue was that employees needed a simpler way to understand and access them.
2. A portal had to serve different users and needs
Not every employee uses the same applications. Access requirements may vary by department, role, responsibility, or location.
A single portal could not simply display every application in the same way to every user. Doing so might create another form of overload, forcing employees to search through tools that were irrelevant to their work.
The portal needed to make the application landscape feel organized and personal enough to be useful. Users should be able to recognize which tools were relevant to them without needing to understand FFI’s entire internal technology structure.
3. The first experience would shape trust in the wider system
An internal portal is often the first step employees take before entering another application. If the portal is confusing, slow, or visually inconsistent, users may associate those problems with the wider digital workplace.
This can lead to lower adoption and increased reliance on manual support. Employees may avoid unfamiliar applications or continue using inefficient workarounds because the central gateway does not give them enough confidence.
The portal therefore had to do more than provide links. It needed to create a clear and dependable entry point that made digital tools feel easier to use.
4. The project required understanding before designing
FFI wanted to create a user-friendly portal, but usability could not be assumed from the organization’s internal perspective. What seemed obvious to the teams managing applications might not be obvious to the employees using them.
Suitmedia needed to understand how target users thought about their tasks, what information they needed, where they experienced difficulty, and how they currently accessed internal systems.
Research was therefore a critical starting point. It reduced the risk of designing a portal around internal assumptions instead of actual employee behavior.
5. Design changes become more expensive after development
If usability issues are discovered only after the portal has been built, correcting them can require changes to the interface, frontend code, integration work, and technical implementation.
FFI wanted to identify potential problems before moving too far into development. Prototyping and testing created a lower-cost environment in which navigation, layout, labels, and interaction patterns could be reviewed and improved.
This made the design process more than a visual exercise. It became a way to reduce implementation risk and improve the likelihood of adoption.
6. The portal needed to balance simplicity and completeness
The portal had to accommodate the full set of applications relevant to FFI employees, but it could not become a dense catalogue.
This created a central design tension. Too little information would force users to guess where to go. Too much information would increase the effort required to choose.
The solution required a structure that made the available applications understandable without asking users to learn the company’s internal system architecture.
Using research to design a gateway employees could understand
1. Plan the research around real user decisions
Suitmedia approached the project through a sequence of planning, research, analysis, prototyping, and testing.
The first objective was to understand the decisions employees needed to make when using the portal. They might be looking for an application by task, department, role, or familiar name.
Starting with these decisions helped shift the design question from “How do we list the applications?” to “How will users know which application to choose?”
This distinction shaped the information architecture and helped ensure that the portal was organized around employee needs rather than the company’s internal application inventory.
2. Study current behavior before introducing a new model
The research examined how users accessed existing applications and where friction appeared in the current experience.
This helped reveal possible sources of confusion. Users may struggle because application names are unclear, tools are difficult to distinguish, access points are scattered, or the existing process provides little context about what each application does.
Understanding these behaviors allowed Suitmedia to design around real problems instead of assuming that a new visual layer alone would solve them.
3. Analyze findings before defining the interface
Research only becomes useful when it changes design decisions. Suitmedia analyzed the findings to identify the structure, labels, navigation patterns, and information priorities that the portal needed.
This step helped separate recurring user needs from individual preferences. A single user may ask for a particular shortcut, but a broader pattern might reveal that many employees need applications grouped by task or role.
The analysis created a more reliable basis for deciding what should appear prominently and how users should move through the portal.
4. Build wireframes to test the structure early
Wireframes were used to establish the portal’s structure before detailed visual design was applied.
This made it easier to examine the placement of navigation, application categories, search or access points, and supporting information. At this stage, the team could focus on whether the logic made sense without becoming distracted by colors or visual styling.
Wireframes also created a shared reference for FFI stakeholders and the technical team. Everyone could discuss the same proposed experience and identify changes before implementation.
5. Develop a prototype that made the experience tangible
The wireframes were translated into a prototype with a more complete representation of the intended interaction.
A prototype allowed potential users to move through the portal and respond to something closer to the eventual experience. This was important because an interface can appear logical when viewed as static screens but feel confusing when used as a sequence.
Prototyping also helped stakeholders evaluate the portal from an employee perspective. Instead of reviewing abstract requirements, they could see how someone might enter the portal, identify an application, and move forward.
6. Test with potential users before development
Suitmedia tested the prototype with potential users to identify areas of difficulty and opportunities for improvement.
User testing was designed to answer practical questions. Could users understand the portal’s purpose? Could they find the applications they needed? Did the labels and categories match their expectations? Did any part of the experience create unnecessary hesitation?
Testing converted assumptions into evidence. It allowed the team to address issues while the design was still flexible and before frontend development made changes more costly.
7. Improve the design based on observed difficulty
The purpose of testing was not to validate the design automatically. It was to find where the design failed to support users and revise those areas.
If users interpreted a category differently from the design team, the structure or language could be adjusted. If an important application was difficult to locate, its placement or presentation could be reconsidered.
This iterative approach improved the design’s practical usefulness. It treated usability as something to be examined through behavior rather than judged only through internal approval.
8. Create a clear and approachable interface
The final designs and wireframes were developed to provide a pleasant and user-friendly interface.
Visual quality mattered because employees would interact with the portal repeatedly. A clear and consistent design could make the internal application landscape feel more organized and credible.
However, the primary aim was not visual novelty. The design needed to guide users toward the applications and tasks that mattered to them. Visual hierarchy, spacing, labels, and interaction patterns all worked toward that purpose.
9. Accommodate the wider FFI application environment
The portal was designed to accommodate the needs of FFI’s various applications.
This required the interface to be flexible enough to present different tools without making the experience inconsistent. Users needed to understand that they were still within one internal digital environment, even when moving into another application.
A shared gateway helped create continuity across FFI’s technology landscape. It gave employees a consistent starting point, reducing the sense that each application existed in isolation.
10. Implement the design as a frontend
After the design and wireframes were established, Suitmedia implemented the experience as a frontend and integrated it with FFI’s technical team.
This stage translated the validated design into a working interface. The collaboration with FFI’s technical team was important because the portal needed to fit into the company’s existing technology environment and application structure.
The implementation therefore connected design intent with operational reality. The frontend had to preserve the usability decisions made during research and testing while meeting the integration requirements of the wider system.
11. Preserve the logic discovered during research
The transition from prototype to frontend can create risk if development changes the interaction logic or introduces new complexity.
Suitmedia’s implementation needed to maintain the tested structure and user flows. This helped ensure that the final product reflected the decisions made from user research rather than becoming a different experience during technical delivery.
The result was a stronger link between research, design, testing, and implementation. Each phase contributed to the same objective: make application access easier for employees.
A clearer gateway reduced the effort of using FFI’s digital tools
1. FFI gained a more coherent entry point
The project produced a portal design that could serve as a central gateway to FFI’s internal applications.
Instead of requiring employees to navigate a scattered collection of tools, the portal provided a more organized first step. Users could begin from one place and find the applications relevant to their work.
This gave FFI a clearer digital workplace structure. The portal helped connect separate applications without requiring them to become one system.
2. Users received a more approachable experience
The final design focused on ease of use, clarity, and visual comfort.
This improved the conditions for adoption. Employees were more likely to use a portal when its purpose and navigation were understandable from the beginning.
A more approachable experience also reduced the perceived complexity of the wider application environment. The tools themselves might remain specialized, but reaching them became less demanding.
3. The portal accommodated varied application needs
FFI’s application environment included tools supporting different business processes. The portal was designed to accommodate these needs within a shared structure.
This created a more scalable foundation. As applications change or new ones are added, FFI can build on a portal model designed to organize a broad set of tools.
The benefit is not only current convenience. A clear structure makes future growth easier to manage because the company has a defined place and logic for introducing new applications.
4. The research process reduced development risk
By conducting research, creating wireframes, developing a prototype, and testing it with potential users, Suitmedia helped identify usability issues before full development.
This reduced the likelihood that FFI would invest in a technically complete portal that employees found difficult to use.
The process also supported better stakeholder alignment. Business and technical teams had opportunities to review the experience at several stages, making it easier to resolve misunderstandings before implementation.
5. FFI and Suitmedia created a stronger design-to-development connection
The designs and wireframes were implemented as a frontend by Suitmedia and integrated with the FFI technical team.
This showed that the project was not limited to recommendations or visual concepts. The experience was translated into a working digital layer that could operate within FFI’s technology environment.
The collaboration also improved continuity between the design and technical phases. The final implementation could retain the interaction decisions that had been researched and tested.
6. Internal support needs could be reduced over time
A confusing application landscape often creates repeated requests for help. Employees may need to ask colleagues where to find a tool, what an application is used for, or how to access it.
A clearer portal can reduce some of this avoidable support work by making access more self-explanatory. Users can begin with a consistent gateway and find relevant tools with less dependence on informal guidance.
This creates a second-order operational benefit. IT and business teams can spend more time on complex support and improvement work rather than answering repeated navigation questions.
7. The portal created a foundation for digital workplace maturity
The portal represented more than a redesign of an internal webpage. It helped FFI think about its applications as part of one employee experience.
That perspective can support future improvements in access, search, permissions, onboarding, and application governance. A clear gateway creates a natural place from which to develop these capabilities.
Over time, this can improve how employees experience the company’s digital workplace. The organization becomes easier to navigate as its technology environment continues to grow.
The deeper lesson: usability begins before the application is opened
1. Access is part of the product experience
An internal application may work well once opened, but employees still need to find it and understand why they should use it.
The portal addressed this often-overlooked part of the experience. It made access and orientation part of the design rather than leaving them to personal memory or informal support.
2. Research prevents internal assumptions from becoming user problems
Organizations know their own systems deeply, which can make familiar labels and structures feel obvious. Users may not share that understanding.
Research and testing reveal where internal logic differs from user logic. This helps design teams create a gateway that reflects how employees actually search and decide.
3. Prototyping is an operational risk-control tool
A prototype allows an organization to test ideas before they become expensive to change.
In this project, early testing helped FFI identify problems before full development. The value was not only better design; it was lower implementation risk and greater confidence in the final direction.
4. One portal can simplify many systems without replacing them
A company does not need to rebuild every application to improve the digital workplace. A well-designed gateway can make separate tools feel more connected.
The portal created coherence at the access layer. It helped employees navigate the wider system while allowing specialized applications to continue serving their individual purposes.
5. Internal UX influences operational velocity
Every moment employees spend searching for the right application is time not spent completing the underlying task.
Improving the portal can therefore support faster work, fewer interruptions, and better adoption of existing technology investments. Small improvements in access can accumulate across a large organization.
6. A digital workplace must evolve with the application landscape
FFI’s needs will change as applications are added, retired, or reorganized. The portal must remain adaptable if it is to continue providing value.
A scalable information structure, consistent design standards, and collaboration between business and technical teams can help the portal evolve without losing clarity.
Strategic Insights for the C-Suite
- Treat application access as part of employee productivity. Employees lose time when they cannot quickly find the right tool. A clear internal gateway helps the organization gain more value from systems it has already invested in.
- Use research before redesigning internal technology. What seems obvious to system owners may be confusing to users. Observing real behavior helps leaders invest in improvements that solve actual friction rather than internal assumptions.
- Test the experience before committing to development. Wireframes and prototypes provide a lower-cost way to identify structural problems. Early testing reduces rework and increases confidence in the final implementation.
- Create one coherent entry point for a diverse application landscape. Separate systems do not have to become one system to feel easier to use. A well-designed portal can provide consistency while preserving the specialized role of each application.
- Design internal platforms for future change. Applications, roles, and employee needs will evolve. A flexible portal and clear design standards help the digital workplace remain useful as the organization grows.
