When the History Group from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage decided to upgrade the leading resource for New Zealand History online, Timebased oversaw and executed the total overhaul of the website - from the content management system to the branding. The result is a fresh and contemporary presentation of history which connects with its audience through interactive features and encourages self discovery with multiple navigation methods on every page.
Services Provided
- Business Analysis
- Technical Analysis
- Information Architecture
- Branding
- UI Design
- Drupal Development
- Project Management
Brief
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s History Group is responsible for the leading website on New Zealand history - NZHistory.net.nz (NZHN). The website is a valuable resource for historians, students and teachers of New Zealand history. However, the History Group were aware that the website was not connecting with as many users as it could be. Added to that, content and interactive features were being developed in-house that the website was not flexible enough to efficiently incorporate.
Solution
Strategy
The first step was to undertake a comprehensive strategy phase that involved user research and business analysis. The findings suggested that the user interface, while simple and easy to navigate, was reinforcing the view that history was a dry subject. The information architecture was very traditional, asking users to step vertically through siloed content and providing very little possibilty for lateral movement through the site. Finally the structure of the website required content duplication and a large amount of manually created relationships. The site was begging for an overhaul, requiring a truly dynamic content management system (CMS) and an updated user interface and content structure.
Technical Analysis
In order to select the most appropriate content management system Timebased completed a comparative technical analysis. With the History Group’s buiness requirements in mind, the open source CMS Drupal was selected as the best fit. This was an extremely bold step for the History Group, as this was to be one of the first government organisations to use an open source system behind a major web asset.
Druapl Development and UI
Timebased assembled a virtual team to redevelop the NZHN website. The first challenge was to rework the existing website interface and data structures into a much more “open web” configuration. The second challenge was to convert 4000 pages of virtually static content into the Drupal CMS, retaining and converting the manually created relationships wherever possible. The third challenge was to introduce new functionality to enhance and augment the content - this included tagging, Google mapping, and syndication. The final challenge was to create a user interface that communicated historical content in a contemporary context, presented the user with the multiple navigation tools in a clear and intuitive way and met stringent accesssibility guidelines.
Branding
From the feedback it was apparent that not only was a technical overhaul in order, but an updated identity was required as well. Timebased took the existing brand and evolved it into a lighter, brighter brand that reflected the contemporary context of the core product (the website) and reflected a 21st century New Zealand identity.
Company Background
New Zealand’s Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH) assists government in its provision and management of cultural resources for the benefit of all New Zealanders, and undertakes a number of activities that support and promote the history and heritage of New Zealand. The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage is Rt Hon Helen Clark (Prime Minster of New Zealand).
