Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Classroom
Development

Website Development

Support

Support and Maintenance

User Research

Wide User Research

Brief

Zoocha have worked with Ofsted since November 2015 as their lead Drupal developer for most of their public facing websites. The brief was to support legacy Drupal 6 architecture as well as building new sites on Drupal 8.

Solution

Drupal 6 Support

  • Full Drupal support and maintenance service for the Ofsted legacy architecture, and infrastructure
  • Remedial security and devops work during supplier transition
  • Content management support
  • Ad hoc feature development

New Service Design and Drupal 8 Development

The methodology and approach were agreed in consultation with GDS and included:

  • User research and testing employing a range of methodologies including remote (online) user testing, face to face interviews with users from each segment/ persona
  • UX design collaboration with the in-house Ofsted designer
  • Drupal 8 and SlimPHP development to create a new 'micro services' architecture in line with GDS recommendations
  • Full API development for serving nearly 0.5m data items with high levels of daily change
  • Refined and optimized the data import process to be able to handle several hundred thousand childcare providers rapidly
  • Advanced search functionality to allow for localised based searches and simple filtering across a range of attributes
  • New cloud infrastructure on AWS for the Beta project that is highly available, auto-scaling, performance optimized, secure
  • Security at the heart of the project
  • Agile development methodology in line with GDS service design
  • Adopting the GOV.UK branding guidelines for Drupal 8 sites, along with ensuring forms meet the standards articulated within the GOV.UK service manual
  • Built to last, and to be continually extended over the coming years

 

Technical highlights

  • Apache Solr integration to provide advanced geospatial and faceted search functionality
  • Completed Alpha and private Beta phases using GDS approved methodology
  • The site has received positive feedback from stakeholders and members of the public
  • Security certified by an independent specialist security testing organisation
  • Successfully passed independent accessibility testing to WCAG2.1 AA level
  • Broader reach through mobile responsiveness