Context
The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) is the world’s largest support network for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with international ambitions. Its members include chambers of commerce and industry, regional development organisations, universities, research institutes, and innovation agencies.
EEN’s mission is “to provide high-quality support to European innovators, researchers, businesses, and consumers […], to reinforce the European Union’s position as a global leader in Research and Innovation, strengthen its Single Market, open up opportunities for SMEs, and maintain high standards of protection for its citizens — all towards a more competitive, digital, green, and inclusive EU.”
Its vision is to enable European innovation to thrive and expand globally.
From 2019 to 2025, I was contracted as an external UX consultant via Cegeka, joining a 14-person IT team to design the user experience of EEN’s core business platform — the new Community (NextEEN) web application. In parallel, I led the UX design for other digital tools in the ecosystem, including:
- Connect (events and forums)
- Learn (e-learning)
- The EEN public website
Challenge
The new Community application, developed in .NET, needed to replicate and improve upon the functionalities of the legacy Drupal platform while enabling deeper customization. Key challenges included:
- The front end had to comply with a new UI framework (eUI) developed by the European Commission. Early versions of eUI offered a limited set of components, posing constraints on UX design.
- Requirements were defined by seven Business Managers from different departments of the European Commission EISMEA agency, who often had conflicting visions and priorities for the product.
- A newly issued standard (Europa Web Guide) was not known by key stakeholders, and many requested features were unsupported due to resource limitations.
- While the initial project manager valued UX contributions, the following three diminished UX’s role, altering the product roadmap.
- After the first six months, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the entire team to shift to fully remote work, requiring a redefinition of our collaboration practices.
Process
The project began with an in-depth review of the legacy platform and early deliverables from previous teams. I actively participated in requirement gathering through workshops, interviews, and focus groups.
From there, I took responsibility for the search functionality, before moving on to the full redesign of all core features across the Community platform and enhancements to the other web applications.
My design process followed a structured UX methodology:
- Requirement analysis (in collaboration with the Business Analyst)
- User flow design
- Wireframe creation
- Internal reviews with front-end and back-end developers
- Iterative feedback loops with Business Managers
- Testing and refinement through development cycles, before and after deployment
Additional ongoing activities included:
- Web analytics review
- Bug and ticket triage
- Usability testing
- User interviews and surveys
- Regular coordination with the IT Team, Business Team, and user representatives
Results
Despite the challenges of remote work, our team adapted quickly, maintaining strong collaboration and focus. In January 2022, the first public release of the new Community platform went live. Updates followed for Learn, Connect, and key areas of the public EEN website.
By December 2024, the impact was measurable:
- +26% in the number of organisations joining the network
- +17% increase in Partnering Opportunities published via the Community platform
- +159% increase in Expressions of Interest for published opportunities
- +39% increase in recorded Achievements by organisations using the Community application