Northwest Seaport Alliance

The Northwest Seaport Alliance is a partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma to jointly manage their marine cargo operations and better respond to competitive challenges. The Alliance is among the largest port systems in North America, providing a vital link for cargo moving through the Pacific Northwest to locations around the world. The two ports remain separate entities, so the Alliance needed a new website—quickly—to market its facilities and services and provide important operational information to its diverse mix of customers that include shippers, truck drivers, and warehouse providers. 

Customer-centric portal built from scratch in 15 weeks

I.F. launched the original Alliance website in just 15 weeks. As the Alliance was a first-of-its-kind partnership, we focused our initial efforts on gathering data. Our Voice of Citizen® analytics showed how customers and business partners were using the two existing port sites and identified areas that needed improvement. Meanwhile, in-depth interviews with internal stakeholders provided valuable insights into the goals for the new venture. 

With a customer-centric design, the new site provided quick and easy access to the operational, service, and facility information that customers value most. Much of this operational content, like the vessel schedule, was populated through custom integrations with third-party data feeds from either the port or their partners. Along with guiding the diverse mix of customers to the right information, the site was designed to efficiently get the right information to a range of stakeholders, from port neighbors and community members to local, state, and federal government officials.   

More recently, the Alliance partnered with I.F. to move from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. The project included redesigning the site, enhancing the navigation, improving search, and meeting current accessibility standards.

Success factors

• Integrations with multiple external databases and data feeds
• Live updates for truckers and shippers
• Customer-centered navigation
• Ongoing data collection for site improvements 
• Improved search
• Accessibility compliance