Improving usability, accessibility and a website redesign for GWMWater

GWMWater’s website had been in its current format since 2008. The website was created in Joomla! version 1.5 and was no longer supported. Its user experience was also at odds with their 2013-18 strategic direction, to “transform into a sophisticated organisation focused on delivering service excellence applying the best appropriate technologies.”

Upon commencement we held workshops with GWMWater’s Managing Director and other senior stakeholders to understand the current pain points for both the business and its users as well to understand aspirations and goals.

This information was crucial in allowing us to produce an information architecture. From here we completed an audit of the existing content, a new messaging framework and editorial style guide and wrote new content for the website using a pair-writing approach (a co-design / highly collaborative approach).

A design workshop was then held to understand GWMWater’ brand and to define a direction that our designs would take. We continued work in a collaborative manner and producing prototypes and continually seeking feedback allowed us to refine and produce a design that the client loved.

We worked using an agile method for the development of the site. Features were delivered in sprints allowing for us to receive timely feedback. The end result is a responsive website built using HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery running on the Joomla Content Management System which uses third party and custom components to enhance the websites functionality.