GovCMS is a content management and hosting platform that provides tools and systems to help government organisations create and host websites that are secure, modern and accessible to the public.The GovCMS website promotes the GovCMS platform, its features, capabilities and hosting options. It serves as a promotional tool and informational resource for would-be and current customers.
The original GovCMS site was built on GovCMS7. After the release of the GovCMS8, the Department of Finance engaged Morpht to build a new site on the GovCMS8 SaaS environment.
About the project
The challenge
The new GovCMS site, based on GovCMS8 SasS, needed to present as being informative and attractive, as well as showcasing what’s possible on GovCM8. The design of the site also needed to adopt layouts and components defined in the Australian Government Design System (AGDS), while retaining its own identity, look and feel.
The approach
The GovCMS team devoted considerable resources into researching what was working on the old site and identifying a set of user needs. This involved conducting interviews and focus groups with users of the site. This led to the creation of a new style guide and visual design to progress the site with a new colour palette and design aesthetic.
During the initial phase of the project, Morpht defined:
- How to best utilise the GovCMS Starter theme to deliver to a set of required components;
- A set of new components to be built;
- How to best align with the Australian Government Design System;
- How to modify site designs to achieve compliance with accessibility standards.
Defining the blueprint
Morpht developed a set of high fidelity wireframes to capture the various required updates, changes and recommendations. These provided a blueprint for development and a clear direction of what the site would look like once completed.
Building in quick time
While the full span of the project took about five months to complete, Morpht was able to deliver on the build within a fairly tight budget. We saved considerable time and effort by installing and implementing the GovCMS Starter Theme and leveraging already existing components. That afforded us the time and space to build the custom components and theme the site to the desired look and feel. We achieved this all in 20 days!
The outcome
The revamped GovCMS8 website was well received by the community. Traffic rose three fold over the six months from the initial release.
The GovCMS team was able to build on this early win by taking an iterative approach to improving the site. A new phase of work, implementing a customer gallery, has been recently completed, showcasing in excess of 300 sites supported by the platform. Morpht was also engaged to design and implement this new showcase.
The GovCMS website, hosted on GovCMS8 SaaS, now serves as a vibrant information hub, service centre and gallery for the GovCMS platform.
Check out the showcase
Why Drupal was chosen
In 2013, the Australian Federal Government commenced the planning process to provide a complete tool-set for the whole of Australian Government. The vision was to 'create once and share with everyone' - after investigation Drupal was the CMS of choice, and the GovCMS project was launched in March 2015.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
The GovCMS Starter theme was developed by Morpht specifically for GovCMS. Using this Starter theme (with some relatively minor alterations to the colours and the addition of some extra components) provided:
- a showcase to the whole of government of what can be achieved with Open Source tools available out-of-the-box with GovCMS
- a fast, cost efficient deployment time, with delivery of the new build and theme within 20 days
