Award-Winning Council Website Redesign
An award-winning council website redesign — Supreme Website at ALGIM 2019.
The Challenge
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council's website needed a complete redesign. The existing site had accumulated years of content without a coherent structure, making it difficult for residents to find council services and information. The redesign needed to be delivered within a tight timeframe, with a large volume of existing content to restructure.
Our Approach
We started with a thorough analysis of the existing site and council services — assessing content structure, user interaction patterns, and stakeholder needs. This informed a new information architecture designed to help residents find what they need quickly.
The UX design prioritised accessibility and multiple pathways to content, ensuring residents could navigate by topic, service type, or location. We built the site on Umbraco CMS, hosted on Microsoft Azure, and optimised for responsive performance across all devices.
Recognition
The redesigned site won both the "Most Improved" and "Supreme Website" awards at the 2019 ALGIM Spring Conference — recognition of the strategic planning, user research, and technical execution that went into the project.
Impact
The Council now has a modern digital platform that makes public services genuinely accessible. Content editors can manage and publish independently, and residents can find information and complete tasks without needing to call or visit in person.