ACLEI approached CRE8IVE with a clear goal to revitalise their existing platform. Their objective was to modernise their outdated website and enhance its visual appeal while also improving user engagement.
ACLEI had chosen a theme on the GoVCMS platform to serve as the foundation for the platform refresh.
The challenge
- Adapting the Civic theme: while the Civic theme provided a very stable, responsive and strong basis for a government website, it had limitations that needed to be addressed for ACLEI’s requirements
- Streamlining data and user experience: data was scattered everywhere and needed to be more organised and streamlined. We focused on working through the Information Architecture (IA) and consolidating data to ensure the right information was presented in the appropriate places for users. The right information needed to be in the right place for the user.
- Data migration and tight timeline: The project required migrating all existing data to the refreshed platform and going live within a short timeframe. Meeting this deadline posed a significant challenge.
- Meeting an ambitious deadline: The project team had to deliver the revamped platform within an incredibly tight timeframe, pushing the boundaries of what was considered feasible.
- User-friendly terminology and labels: Introducing terms and labels that were clear and unambiguous for users was a key consideration to enhance usability.
- Dealing with legislative language: The platform had to accommodate legislative language while ensuring its clarity and accessibility to users who might not be familiar with legal terminology.
- Ensuring quality assurance and iterative development: A robust quality assurance cycle was implemented which involved an iterative building process aligned with design and testing phases.
Solution
To deliver a successful project and address the challenges outlined above, C8.Digital implemented the following approach, building a GovCMS Drupal website.
- 1-1 Interviews were conducted to understand user behaviour and pain points when navigating the old ACLEI website including identifying missing components and exploring how to enhance user experience
- Proposed new IA was presented with maximum three levels deep – for easy navigation and user experience. Following client sign-off, we tested the new IA tree and obtained user inputs.
- Workshops were conducted to work through the Reporting form, and included:
- Identifying gaps and system fails from an administration / processing point of view
- Redesigning the reporting form to be short, concise and able to deliver value both to the user and the ACLEI team on a daily basis
- Implementing a self-screening process to limit unrelated requests being forwarded to ACLEI
The new website was successfully built on Civic theme and incorporated a range of new elements including content entry and tagging.
Results
This GovCMS website incorporated user-friendly, personalised theme elements. C8.Digital were able to publish, organise and review content easily with the content workflow put in place.
End users were provided with an improved information architecture, making it significantly easier to find information. This provided the ACLEI team with the ability to tweak the user experience just by hand picking related articles for the content created.
ACLEI were thrilled with the outcome, noting the speed and accuracy with which we were able to transform their digital assets. The end user experience was vastly improved through the updated architecture, page speed and content.
