EASL: Creating a connected digital experience for Europe’s liver community
The Client
Website design and development for a long-standing Soto client, bringing together a large and complex content ecosystem, an integrated Memberzone and a consistent user experience across EASL’s digital platforms.
The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) is a leading professional association dedicated to advancing liver research, improving the treatment of liver disease and supporting the global hepatology community.
Soto has worked with EASL since 2014, supporting the organisation as its website and digital requirements have evolved.
After more than a decade working together, EASL approached us to help shape the next generation of its digital presence: redeveloping both the public-facing easl.eu website and its Memberzone.
The Challenge
EASL’s existing website worked well, but its design was beginning to feel dated and, after years of growth, the site had become very large.
With a huge amount of content serving members, healthcare professionals, researchers, event attendees, partners and the wider medical community, this wasn’t simply a case of giving the existing site a new look.
A major part of the project was about simplifying and creating consistency: reviewing how a substantial volume of information was structured and presented, honing down content and making it easier for people to find what they needed.
At the same time, the new website needed to work as part of a much wider EASL digital ecosystem, connecting seamlessly with its CRM, membership services and other platforms.
The goal was a modern, accessible and user-focused website that could support EASL for years to come, while remaining straightforward for its internal team to manage.
How We Helped
A fresh approach to UX and design
Working with our design partners at Haycraft, we undertook the UX/UI and creative design for the new website.
EASL already had an established visual identity, including a system of track colours used to help audiences identify different types of content. Rather than replacing this, we incorporated it into the new digital experience, using colour, typography and consistent design patterns to help users understand where they are and find relevant information.
With such a large site and so many different audiences, content hierarchy was particularly important. The new design introduces clearer calls to action, more consistent page structures and reusable components, creating a coherent experience across the site while still allowing individual sections to meet different needs.
The result is a cleaner, more contemporary interface that feels unmistakably EASL.
Making complex content easier to navigate
A significant part of the project involved looking at how EASL’s extensive content could be presented more effectively.
The Soto and EASL teams worked together on the migration and management of a huge volume of existing content, taking the opportunity to rationalise, restructure and introduce greater consistency along the way.
Events were one area where we made significant improvements. Event pages were redesigned to be more succinct and easier to navigate, while providing the flexibility EASL needs to communicate information about in-person events, online events and webinars.
We also introduced consistent filtering across key areas of the site, including publications, news and events, making it easier for visitors to explore EASL’s extensive library of content and quickly narrow down what is relevant to them.
Behind the scenes, flexible WordPress templates and Elementor give the EASL team greater control over content while maintaining consistency across the site. The platform was designed to make it straightforward for non-technical users to create and update content without compromising the overall user experience.
Connecting the website and Memberzone
Alongside the public-facing website, we redeveloped EASL’s Memberzone to create a more seamless experience for its members.
Once logged in, members can access member-only content and the member directory, manage or renew their membership and complete a range of applications.
The Memberzone integrates with EASL’s SugarCRM, allowing information to move between the website and EASL’s wider membership infrastructure.
Single sign-on (SSO) means members only need to log in once to access their EASL membership benefits, helping to make what is technically a complex collection of systems feel like one connected experience to the user.
We also took the opportunity to streamline EASL’s member registration process, simplifying the journey and creating two purpose-built interfaces: one designed for individuals registering themselves online, and another designed specifically for the EASL team to use when registering new members at events.
The new registration functionality has been developed and is ready to form part of the wider membership experience, although its launch is currently dependent on work being completed by another of EASL’s technology partners.
This work reflects an important part of our approach to the project: looking beyond individual pages and features to understand how EASL’s different systems, teams and user journeys connect, and finding opportunities to simplify those experiences wherever possible.
One EASL experience across multiple platforms
The main EASL website is only one part of the organisation’s digital presence.
Throughout the project, we worked alongside EASL’s other technology providers to help establish a consistent look and feel across its wider platforms, including its new education platform.
We shared designs and styling for common interface elements such as buttons, helping other providers reproduce the visual language of the main website.
This collaborative approach means users moving between different EASL services encounter familiar design patterns and interactions, creating a much more joined-up experience – even when the technology behind those services is provided by different teams.
Built for what comes next
From the outset, the new website was designed not just around EASL’s requirements today, but around how its digital presence may continue to evolve.
The platform combines flexible content management with structured content types, search and filtering, responsive design and integrations with EASL’s wider systems. The original brief also placed an emphasis on accessibility, SEO, structured metadata and support for future multilingual content.
Most importantly, the project has transformed a very large and complex website into a clearer and more consistent digital experience without losing the depth of information that makes easl.eu such an important resource for its community.
For us, it also represents the latest chapter in a relationship that has lasted more than a decade – evolving from ongoing website support and development into a collaborative redevelopment of one of EASL’s most important digital platforms.
EASL has had an excellent partnership with Soto for many years. The Soto team provides us with technical support for our main website (easl.eu). Anything from website hosting, regular website maintenance, development of custom and tailormade solutions to meet our specific needs, and integration within our larger IT environment (links to our CRM, publisher website, etc.) They cover it all. Most recently we've started the joint development of a brand new EASL website, which includes web design and technical upgrades to ensure our website is fit for purpose for the coming years. The team at Soto, under Zoey's outstanding leadership, is always very responsive and able and willing to meet our often changing needs. It's a pleasure to work with them.
Wouter Kruijis
Head of Association & Community Services, EASL
