Sector(s)
Team Members
The Icelandic Institute of Natural History (NÍ), an agency of the Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate oversees the research and monitoring of Iceland's natural environment. The NÍ website was based on Drupal 7 and needed upgrading to Drupal 9. NÍ used this as an opportunity to improve the system to provide a more user-friendly and accessible experience. This involved implementing a modern design and enhancing the search functionality to make the information about Iceland's natural environment more accessible to users.
Who is NÍ?
The Icelandic Institute of Natural History (NÍ), an agency of the Ministry of the Environment, Energy, and Climate in Iceland, is tasked with extensive research and monitoring activities related to the study and safeguarding of Iceland's natural environment. Its primary focus is conducting research in zoology, botany, and geology, encompassing the documentation and classification of Iceland's diverse biota stored across scientific databases.
A substantial portion of NÍ's activities involves the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the conservation value of natural sites, species, habitats, and geological formations. Furthermore, they provide guidance on sustainable use of resources. NÍ's responsibilities also encompass population monitoring, publishing red lists, documenting natural phenomena, and maintaining Iceland's Nature Conservation Register.
THE PROBLEM: Challenges the client were facing:
The existing NÍ system, built on Drupal 7, had grown outdated, an upgrade was required in order to incorporate modern features with greater functionality. Enhancements to the design were needed to improve accessibility and make the site mobile-friendly.
A critical aspect of the NÍ website is the extensive BIOTA data - an expansive collection of scientific research databases that classify and monitor all organisms in Iceland. The handling and search capabilities of this invaluable data needed refinement to improve user accessibility. A revamp of the search functionality was essential in order to make these valuable information resources more accessible.
THE SOLUTION: How did 1xINTERNET help?
The 1xINTERNET design team revamped the former website with a fresh, contemporary design, focusing on an enhanced navigation structure to improve the user experience. The upgrade involved migrating the system to a new Drupal 9 environment, transitioning content from the previous Drupal 7 site and restructuring the content to improve accessibility. The resulting website boasts increased speed, responsiveness and mobile compatibility.
The most important feature of the website is the enriched search functionality implemented with ElasticSearch. The BIOTA search allows users to filter search parameters by animal kingdom, plant, fungi and comprehensive geographical details about protected sites in Iceland. This enhancement improves user access to a wealth of important scientific data sourced from multiple databases.
We also substantially improved the editorial experience within the new Drupal environment. The improvements streamline manual editorial tasks and offer the NÌ team a simple and efficient content and maintenance workflow. Additionally, notable enhancements to the core module's translation feature simplify the overall translation process.
Key features of the project
- Drupal 9 Upgrade for Better Performance
The outdated Drupal 7 environment underwent an upgrade to the latest Drupal 9 version. This transition empowered Ní with a robust and secure CMS, delivering improved performance, flexibility, and scalability.
- Advanced Search Functionality with ElasticSearch Integration
The implementation of ElasticSearch as a potent search solution for the BIOTA database significantly enhanced information retrieval. This integration enables users to access data more efficiently while also integrating external data sources to enrich search outcomes.
- Improved Editorial Experience
Substantial enhancements were made to streamline content management for editors. The new Drupal environment offers an intuitive interface and simplified workflows.
- Simplified Translation Process
Utilising core modules, the translation process has been simplified for NÍ to manage multilingual content effortlessly. This improvement facilitates seamless translations and enhances the efficiency of maintaining the website's multilingual aspects.
- Enhanced Accessibility with a Design Update
The revamped design ensures accessibility across various devices, offering an optimal user experience for both desktop and mobile users. It includes improved menu structures and navigation for an intuitive user interface.
Back to topIt’s important to us that our website is user-friendly and accessible. NÍ's experts share their knowledge about Iceland's nature and it is important that the website is reliable and the environment up-to-date and secure."
Anna Sveinsdóttir, Department Director Scientific collections and outreach.
NÍ selected Drupal due to its foundation on open-source software and its ability to integrate with other systems. Given the client’s positive experience with Drupal and satisfaction with the service provider opting to continue with Drupal and upgrade to the latest version was a logical progression to augment the website functionalities.
The versatile architecture of Drupal enables effortless integration with ElasticSearch. This seamless integration significantly improved the management and retrieval of extensive Biota data, thereby enhancing the search experience for users. Drupal's capacity to manage structured data and integrate with external data sources made it the optimal solution for overseeing NÍ's scientific research and categorization requirements.
Technical Specifications
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Key modules/theme/distribution used:
