On this page:
At a glance
$101K-$200K
2022
4 to 6 months
Completed
CivicTheme, GovCMS, Drupal
Federal government
Discovery & strategy, Design & user research, Build & migration, Content & training
Whole of government, Open design, Open source, Web development, Content management systems, Drupal Planet
User needs, Multidisciplinary teams, Agile delivery, Tools & systems, Design, Open standards & common platforms, Open source, Accessibility
Overview
Access Hub’s challenge
Access content was a set of pages on the main Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and the Arts . The team wanted a new, dedicated, fit-for-purpose, highly accessible Access Hub website designed and built within a limited budget.
Access Hub’s transformation
Salsa worked with our design partners, . Today looked after human-centred visual design (using components as the base) and content design. Salsa then worked on content writing/editing, the site build on , and accessibility testing.
The outcomes
- A new, visually appealing dedicated website
- User-tested design
- Updated content, maximised for the online medium
- Quick, easy and cost-effective site build with GovCMS and CivicTheme
“We are very pleased with the end product and have received positive feedback.”
Anna Snidaro
Assistant Director, Communications Accessibility, Consumer Safeguards
Detailed case study
Below is detailed information on the challenge, transformation and final outcomes/benefits.
Access Hub’s challenge — hidden content in a large site
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and the Arts covers a broad range of subjects and content. However, important Access Hub content was difficult to find on the large website. The team wanted a new, dedicated Access Hub .
The content is very important, because it covers essential information and communication services for people who are d/Deaf, hard of hearing and/or have speech communication difficulty. It includes information and access to National Relay Service options.
The Department went out to tender to find a suitable partner to design and build the new site. The tender also included content work such as information architecture (IA) design and content writing and editing.
Access Hub had a fixed budget.
Access Hub’s transformation — a user-tested dedicated website
Access Hub’s transformation covered human-centred design, content design, content writing/editing and site build. Salsa’s proposed solution was a website, built using (a design system and Drupal 9/10 theme).
Access Hub design
Salsa and our design partners kicked off the project with a 6-week design and discovery process. During this time, Today followed its usual human-centred design approach, focusing on the end users’ needs. The designs went through several iterations, based on user testing and client feedback. All designs were based on CivicTheme, keeping to out-of-the-box components when possible. However, the design did end up having quite a few custom components.
Today also worked on the best way to organise the content. This included the menu structure and user journeys. For example, a user can self-identify their situation and communication preferences:
- I use Auslan
- I am d/Deaf and use English
- I am hard of hearing
- I have speech communication difficulty
Below you can see how visual design and content design work together to help users find the information that applies to them.
Today created a range of custom icons to help with visual communication. They also created a new visual template to show how different types of calls work. Below is an example for how Video Relay calls work.
Access Hub content
Access Hub subject matter experts provided initial copy for the new website. With the new information architecture and user journeys set up by Today, our Salsa content strategist needed to write new content pages and re-write others to fit with the new structure. All content pages were also edited to ensure they followed web writing best practice, including meeting content accessibility standards. While the original brief was for 20 pages of content, the final content was nearly double the size, and many of the pages needed to be long, with detailed instructions for users.
The site build
The dev work started in parallel with the content writing/editing. Although the project was being built using CivicTheme, Today’s designs did require custom frontend and backend development. The customisations included:
- A custom header with three quick links for users
- A custom subscribe block
- Card customisations
- Custom accordions so step-by-step instructions can be embedded in accordions
- A customised sitemap
- A print stylesheet so pages, including content in accordions, can be visually styled ready for printing
- Custom search
Below is an example of the custom accordions for step-by-step instructions.
The outcomes — a user-tested site on GovCMS
A new, visually appealing, dedicated Access Hub
Many accessible features and different ways of accessing information — including videos, diagrams and images
User-tested and validated design
Updated content, maximised for the online medium
Quick, easy and cost-effective site build with GovCMS and CivicTheme
The benefits of the whole-of-government platform GovCMS, including open source code (no licensing fees), access to the GovCMS community, and a highly resilient and secure platform
About Access Hub
Access is a website from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and the Arts. Access Hub provides important information and links to services for people who are d/Deaf, hard of hearing and/or have speech communication difficulty. The site includes information about the National Relay Service (NRS) and different NRS call types, as well as other information and resources.