Our website comes runner-up at DrupalSouth Splash Awards

Our recently upgraded website has been named runner-up in two categories at the first-ever DrupalSouth Splash Awards.

The awards recognise Australian and New Zealand websites created on the Drupal platform for outstanding design, development and delivery.

We took home runner-up for the design and user experience category and for Government.

Toitū Te Whenua Head of Customer Engagement, Nic Chrisp, says it’s great to hear independent experts judged our website to be among the best Drupal websites in Australasia.

'Our team was focused on putting customers at the centre of the website’s design,' says Nic.

'These awards indicate they have been successful in creating a website that works for users – and we’ll do our best to ensure it continues to be!'

We upgraded our website last year to help users quickly and more easily find the information they require. For example, we’ve improved the search function, taken a user-focused approach to navigation and streamlined the layout.

While in the development phase, we carried out user research with customers and staff to ensure the website is easier to use.

All the site’s images are generated from our free-to-use, publicly available Basemaps tool and the LINZ data service, which provides a bird’s eye view of New Zealand via high-resolution aerial imagery.

'Our new platform allows us to continuously upgrade the site to meet user needs and good website practices,' says Nic.

'Contributing back to the open-source community was part of the award criteria, meaning lessons learnt and innovation developed in the project will contribute to improvements for users of Drupal around the world.'

The response from users of the upgraded website has been very positive. In our post-launch survey, the level of positive feedback on the design increased from 28 percent to 91 percent.

The new website will continue to evolve and we’re always keen to receive feedback from visitors and users via digitalcommunications@linz.govt.nz