Australian Energy Regulator (AER)

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) website is its most important channel for sharing transparent, timely information with industry and the public. As a development partner, Morpht rebuilt the site and moved nearly 27,000 pages and more than 41,000 documents off end-of-life Drupal 7 with no data loss.

The outcome

The AER launched a simpler, accessible website on Drupal 10, on schedule and within budget, with every page and document intact.

26,997 pages and 41,815 documents migrated with no data loss
32 legacy content types realigned into a simpler content model
Internal links updated and redirects mapped for almost every URL, protecting search rankings
Built to WCAG 2.1 AA, verified by an external accessibility auditor
Delivered on schedule and within budget

Overview

Drupal 10 | User experience | Migration | GovCMS PaaS | Web development

The old site was more than 10 years old and ran on Drupal 7, which was nearing end of life. Rather than a simple upgrade, the AER started a rigorous discovery process to understand business and user needs.

The site was large and had evolved over many years. Its internals were strong, with many relationships that categorised content well, but several areas could be simplified. It held 32 content types, 26,997 pages, and 41,815 documents.

Visit the site

The content of the site included:

Content types

26997

Nodes

41815

Documents

The Solution

Working with design agency Svelte Studios, the AER engaged Morpht as development partner. The project covered discovery, content modelling, migration, and a modern interface. We built the site in Drupal 9 on GovCMS PaaS (the GovCMS option for sites that need custom code) and launched it on Drupal 10.

Discovery

User-driven discovery with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders shaped a new information architecture (IA). It also informed user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) improvements that support the AER's communication goals.

Building the framework

Morpht created a content model covering the content types, fields, taxonomies, and views needed to migrate existing content and support new content. Fewer, clearer content types give users a simpler structure to navigate.

Complex content migrations

The migration mapped complex connections between legacy data and the new content model. Using the Drupal Migrate module, we transferred all legacy data with no loss.

Almost every URL changed. We updated all internal links and mapped redirects to keep broken links to a minimum and retain the site's search rankings.

Better user experience

Svelte Studios designed a fresh, intuitive interface informed by discovery. Clear audience segmentation and better findability addressed long-standing usability issues.

Accessible for all

As the AER's primary communication platform, the site had to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Morpht builds accessibility testing into every project, and the AER also engaged an external accessibility auditor to work alongside us.