Newport City Council
With outdated digital systems, its in-house team partnered with Zoocha and LocalGov Drupal to deliver a modern, collaborative platform.
Month delivery timeline
Lanuages supported
Centralised content management
The ask
NCC required a user-centred platform transformation that would meet the needs of the local community through serving bilingual content, and also improve ease of use for the web team. LocalGov Drupal represented the perfect solution for the NCC team, with a structural foundation tailored to the needs of local authorities; LocalGov Drupal was essential in allowing the NCC team to meet an ambitious launch timeline.
The approach
LocalGov drupal
LocalGov Drupal allows local authorities to design and build digital platforms with a core set of components available out-of-the-box configured exclusively for the needs of local councils. LocalGov Drupal represented the perfect solution for the NCC team, with a fantastic structural foundation and was therefore essential in allowing the NCC team to meet an ambitious launch timeline.
Collaborative design
NCC offered an in-house graphic design team that were able to produce a series of visuals that demonstrated the vision for the look and feel of the new platform. Our UX team then translated these expectations into usable digital prototypes, ensuring adherence to LocalGov Drupal templates and modern digital standards. Designs were then tested with users and stakeholders alike through a series of workshops, desk research and guerilla testing to ensure the new platform would centre around promoting a slick user experience.
Multilingual content
Zoocha extended LocalGov Drupal to facilitate a bilingual content experience. The Welsh Language Act 1993 dictates that Welsh and English languages should be treated equally, therefore, providing users with a complete bilingual experience was crucially important to the success of this project. NCC are able to leverage automated translation from within the CMS, supported by a process of manual human review to ensure accuracy and completeness.
Staggered release
Adopting a staggered release approach to development ensured we were able to align with the priorities of NCC, and meet the ambitious timeline. This resulted in the implementation of a proxy pass to allow both the old NCC platform and new Drupal site to exist simultaneously, with content from the old platform filtered through to the new and users redirected to the appropriate pages accordingly.
Microsite development
Zoocha have also worked with NCC to release multiple microsites in Drupal to support the wider digital estate. Each site is fully bilingual, with centralised content management delivered through the core platform. This has provided greater consistency and control across the NCC digital offering, maintaining a cohesive user experience for their audiences.
The results
Our work with the NCC resulted the launch of the UK's first multilingual LocalGov Drupal platform in just 5 months from project inception through to live. Zoocha continue to work with the Council on the delivery of continuous improvement features to the platform, making the most of what Drupal has to offer.
Visit website
Working with Zoocha has been a great experience. Their LGD and web development expertise helped bring our ideas to life in a modern, accessible, and user focused way. Collaboration and response times have been excellent, and technical support has been fast and effective throughout Newport City Council
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