Enabling consumers and businesses to find the information they need

As part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, the Consumer Protection agency plays a key role in helping everyday New Zealand people and businesses transact with confidence. 

Following a research project to understand consumers better, the Consumer Protection agency wanted to redevelop the consumerprotection.govt.nz website to make it visually appealing, quicker and easier for consumers to find relevant and up-to-date information. The redevelopment was part of their bigger objective to help consumers to be knowledgeable, protected and empowered.

The previous website was cluttered with too many details and a poor hierarchy of information, making it difficult for consumers to find relevant advice. Its design needed a refresh to reflect a modern look and the agency’s new strategy and direction.

Consumers were unable to effectively use online tools and forms. One of the main tasks that consumers wanted to do on the site was to report or resolve a problem, and it was not clear how to do this on the previous site. 

Many consumers also visited the site via their mobile devices but the mobile site was poorly displayed. The agency also found out through their research that the homepage was often not the main entry to their site, with traffic spreading widely across the site and 80% of traffic coming from organic searches.

Silverstripe conducted a review of the website’s information architecture (IA) and user experience design (UX). Using Consumer Protection’s research results, Silverstripe ran several workshops and developed different wireframes and graphics for the agency to consider. As a result, the mega-menu was able to be designed to make it clearer for users to find information that they needed. 

Silverstripe also performed multiple testings for browsers and devices to make sure that the site was responsive to whatever consumers were using. Peer reviewing was performed throughout the process to minimise potential bugs and errors.

One of the requests from Consumer Protection was that they wanted to load new content early in the project whilst the new site was being developed. So Silverstripe set up the IA in the first week of the project, which enabled the agency to do this easily. 

Using Agile project management methodology, Silverstripe delivered a website in just under three months. Since site visitors access the site from various pages, not just the homepage, the new mega menu now navigates consumers easily through the site at any entry point. The site header and footer containing the main menu are made visible at all access points. The search function is at the centre of the site, giving users what they want: information about how to become a confident consumer. All the main tasks that users want to perform on the site are clearly set out, such as “report or resolve a problem” and “returns, refunds, and repairs”. 

The website is responsive to different devices, making it easy for users to access information from their mobile devices.

With expertise in web development and Agile project management, Silverstripe succeeded in helping Consumer Protection redevelop their website and deliver what their customers wanted whilst meeting the agency’s strategic objective of helping everyday New Zealand people and businesses transact with confidence.