Introduction

Super Pansera is a neighborhood supermarket located in the city of Anchieta, Brazil, that values collaborative management and team alignment.

However, their employee handbook was outdated, dense, and difficult to understand. As a result, employee engagement with the document was low.

A resource that should serve as a key communication tool was perceived as bureaucratic and disconnected from the company’s culture.

The challenge was to transform this traditional document into something clear and accessible, capable of:

Effectively communicating rules and procedures

One of the main challenges was to present the company’s guidelines in a way that is easy to understand and remember. Traditional manuals often use complex legal or corporate language, which can discourage employees from reading or applying the information. The goal was to simplify the language and use visual elements to ensure clarity and accessibility for all team members.

Strengthening organizational culture 

In this project, we aimed to make the manual a tool that reinforces Super Pansera’s collaborative and people-centered culture, using language and design choices that express the company’s identity and daily practices.

Fostering a sense of belonging 

That meant creating a tone that is inclusive and warm, using visuals that reflect real workplace situations, and encouraging dialogue rather than imposing rigid rules. A sense of belonging emerges when people recognize themselves in the communication of the organization.

We adopted a Legal Design approach centered on empathy, clarity, and usability.

The process was divided into three main phases:

1. Discovery

• Document analysis
• Interviews with employees
• Identification of linguistic, visual, and structural barriers
• Pain-point mapping

In this phase, we concluded that the manual had a communication problem

2. Design

• Development of a new content structure based on plain language principles
• Application of the company’s visual identity to the document
• Design of infographics, icons, and illustrations to support understanding

Here, we have reorganized the manual withthe design methods mentioned above.

3. Follow-up and Validation

• Usability testing with employees
• Continuous improvements based on feedback received
• Feedback loops

Employees were asked to locate and interpret specific rules and guidelines within the handbook.