Intuitive access to democracy: bpb.de in new splendour

Strengthening democracy, promoting civil society: these have been the tasks of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) for almost 70 years. With a wide range of events, publications, themed dossiers, audiovisual and online products, it creates an understanding of political issues, encourages political participation and strengthens democratic awareness.
It has been almost ten years since the last relaunch of the bpb website. Now the website has a new look: with a new conceptual approach and an up-to-date, fresh look: this is how political education goes online!

bpb.de

"bpb.de - The great repository of knowledge on politics, economics and history"

Retreaded for the 70th birthday

We have been looking after the bpb website since 2003. One of the current highlights of our collaboration is the relaunch of the website, the largest portal for political education in the German-speaking world. The authority celebrates its 70th birthday in 2022. We worked together for six years on the new site, which is now visually adapted to contemporary user experience standards and, above all, opens a new chapter in terms of technology and content structure.

From conception workshops, graphic visualisation and technical implementation to migration and editorial revision of the content, we supported this multi-year project from start to finish.

The result is a site that has been very well received both within the bpb and by users: The appealing design invites users to explore and read more - above all, users now need even fewer clicks to access the numerous high-quality content. A big win for everyone involved.

The biggest challenge was to make the bpb's content easier to find and access and at the same time present it in a more appealing way. This was no easy task, as the website contains around 120 extensive online dossiers, the media centre contains more than 3,500 audio and video contents and the web shop offers around 1,600 currently available publications.

The individual and generous design

Visually, the new site is based on the previous CI, which has been retained but adapted to current viewing habits. Targeted use of templates ensures a relaxed appearance and clarity - both on the portal and dossier entry pages and in the presentation of individual articles. The optimal balance between functionality and design now gives visitors more space to consciously engage with the content.

Safely through the info cosmos: The new navigation

The website recorded 60 million visits last year alone. In order to make the diverse content intuitively usable for all these visitors, the navigation has been revised and replaced by filters in many places. A clear distinction between the different formats, content and products now provides users with better orientation.

The centrepiece of the strategic redesign is the infocosmos we developed: the multi-layered site content is now clearly structured by topic and can be accessed not only via the navigation architecture, which can be opened as a mega menu, but also via the site's own topic search thanks to keywording and filtering.

Lots of luggage: the move from the editorial office's perspective

The migration to the new site ran parallel to the daily workflow for around six months - the content from the old site was automatically imported to the new site. However, this also meant editing all of the migrated content. All content had to be edited according to the new filter system, keywords added and pages reformatted.

In addition, many new images were added and graphics redesigned. The editorial team spent 2,700 hours editing the countless pages and processed almost 300 tickets - always in consultation with the in-house front-end department, which optimised the editing, and in constant coordination with the bpb's contact persons.

With its minimalist, clear design and good usability, combined with strong content, bpb.de brings the study of politics online. The website motivates people to take a critical look at political and social issues, making it the ideal tool for democratic decision-making.

All projects

Projects with purpose

For over 30 years, we have been working with remarkable institutions from the education, science, culture, administration or business sectors.

All our projects are based on common features: their demand for a high standard of editorial quality, their complexity and the fact that they are part of a greater societal change.

Throughout our work, an innovative and strategic outlook is key. At the same time, we have the highest demands on usability, design and the underlying technology of our work. All of these components must prove sustainable in the long term.

The projects that move us are socially relevant, they matter. At the same time, they enable and inspire us to try out new ideas and concepts.

In all contexts, we value a comprehensive understanding of the diverse organizational cultures of our clients. We know how to support employees in change processes and how to moderate cultural change.

We see consulting as a joint process in which we use co-creative elements as effective and active forms of collaboration. Our aim is to involve all relevant stakeholders in finding solutions in order to achieve an optimal result that will be accepted in the long term.

Awards

Our work has received many awards. We work on projects with journalistic standards and high benchmarks for design and usability. Thanks to these criteria, 3pc was awarded the Grimme Online Award as well as other prizes.

"In a world permanently surrounded by media and technical evolution our perception is changing, user interfaces - the interfaces between human and machine - play a key role. This is where the future is negotiated and where we help shape it.“

Armin Berger, founder and CEO

Selected Projects

Germany's most popular voting tool

The interactive voting tool, Wahl-O-Mat (‘VotAutomaton‘) has become an indispensable part of voting behaviour in Germany since the 2002 parliamentary elections. The award-winning tool, and its ergonomic and distinct look, was developed by 3pc in close collaboration with the German Federal Agency for Civic Education. During election time, it is number 1 in the app store and is one of Google's most popular search terms. Its unique gamification of politics and user-centric sets Wahl-O-Mat apart from any other election tool.

Our app has been played over 100 million times and is compatible with iPhone, iPad and android smartphones.
Federal Ministry of Education and Research - #innovationsland Deutschland campaign

Innovation - what does that actually mean? For Germany, the world, and for each and every one of us? How can we encourage the powers of innovation in our country? - These are the kind of questions that we have dealt with in the #innovationsland Deutschland campaign. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and together with the lead agency, we developed a strategy and a design concept for their digital campaign. We are also jointly responsible for the design of their campaign program.
A new digital identity for the Goethe Institut

The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany and has been advancing globally the foreign cultural and educational policy worldwide for over 50 years. What does the Goethe-Institut with its 157 offices in 98 countries stand for in the digital age? With an audit on its overall digital presence, we systematically analyzed the Goethe-Institut's digital strategy to date and developed recommendations on how the renowned organization should position itself in the future. With the establishment of the Goethe Lab as a new organizational unit, the Goethe-Institut is now repositioning itself in the area of innovative language technologies.
Berlin Institute of Health: How Research becomes Healthcare Policy

The Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), located at the renowned university hospital Charité, is a scientific institution for medical translation and precision medicine. The BIH is dedicated to new approaches for better prognoses and novel therapies as well as unsolved health problems. We provide support for the BIH and have completely relaunched their website. In the course of a relaunch process, the multisite www.bihealth.org was subjected to a continuous technical, content-related and visual refresh in individual work packages. Our challenge was to present the technical system, which had grown over time into a complex content structure, in a user-optimized manner containing information appropriate to their target group.

Our Clients

For over 27 years, we have been successfully working with federal ministries and public institutions, cities and communities, universities, research foundations, museums, cultural institutions as well as private businesses.