Sector(s)

Project Team

Climate Change Authority

Salsa Digital team: 

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Organizations Involved

Salsa Digital worked with the Climate Change Authority (CCA) to refresh the look and feel of its website, uplift the overall site visitor experience and improve the information architecture. The new design was built on the Drupal 10 content management system (CMS) with CivicTheme design system to create a consistent and standards-compliant user experience. We then transitioned CCA onto the Salsa Service Desk.

Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome)
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Climate Change Authority’s challenge

Climate Change Authority (CCA) wanted to improve its user experience on its corporate GovCMS website. They approached Salsa six weeks before the end of the financial year with a modest budget and wanted to focus on making limited minor UI changes to several pages and a few components, given the limited time and budget available. 

However, Salsa Digital suggested an ambitious approach to uplift their entire frontend theme by implementing CivicTheme to significantly improve the overall website experience to be developed and live in 4 weeks.

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Climate Change Authority’s transformation — full website rebuild, migration and support

Salsa Digital embarked on a comprehensive rebuild and migration of the Climate Change Authority's website, going beyond basic cosmetic frontend updates to implement significant design updates. CivicTheme, an open-source design system, and Drupal 10 theme were used to ensure a fast and cost-effective site build. CivicTheme includes a robust theme and a library of 60+ components designed to deliver a consistent, high-quality digital experience out of the box. The flexible framework of CivicTheme allowed for quick deployment of the website’s visual design and branding, ensuring a seamless user experience across the platform.

To efficiently handle and migrate data from the old CCA website, we installed CivicTheme alongside the existing theme and used CivicTheme migration helpers to move all content to the new theme seamlessly.

The new website was designed to be WCAG AA 2.1 compliant and was reviewed by Salsa’s accessibility expert to ensure full standard compliance.

The website’s information architecture (IA) was also reviewed, and recommendations were made for a stage 2 uplift. Salsa conducted high-level content/IA discovery activities and workshops with key CCA stakeholders. Tasks included a card-sorting activity and tree testing to validate the proposed IA. 

At the end of the rebuild, Salsa transitioned CCA to Salsa’s Service Desk, which provides 24/7 support and access to experienced developers to ensure that the website remains secure and runs smoothly.

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The outcomes — a new, refreshed CCA website

High-level outcomes include:

  • A quick and cost-effective rebuild using CivicTheme

  • A quick and cost-effective migration using CivicTheme migration helpers

  • An improved user experience

  • An easy-to-maintain website based on a low-no-code solution (CivicTheme)

  • An IA roadmap for future uplift that will further improve the user experience

  • Access to experienced developers for ongoing maintenance via Salsa's Service Desk
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Why Drupal was chosen

The Climate Change Authority was already using GovCMS and wanted to continue using the GovCMS platform. GovCMS is a mature, whole-of-government Drupal solution. Drupal was chosen as the preferred CMS for Australia’s Federal Government through the creation of the GovCMS platform, which was launched in 2015. GovCMS is designed to make it easier for government agencies to create modern, affordable, responsive websites. Importantly, GovCMS provides a whole-of-government platform to help consolidation across government departments. The fact that Drupal is open source means there are no expensive lock-in contracts, and GovCMS can build a Drupal/GovCMS community. 

Technical Specifications

Drupal version:

Key modules/theme/distribution used:

Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen

GovCMS was chosen as a mature, whole-of-government Drupal solution. Drupal was chosen as the preferred CMS for Australia’s Federal Government through the creation of the GovCMS platform, which was launched in 2015. GovCMS is designed to make it easier for government agencies to create modern, affordable, responsive websites. 

CivicTheme was chosen as a Drupal theme to ensure a fast and cost-effective site build.