Project Overview
The Clean Energy Council (CEC) is a membership-based NFP committed to accelerating the transformation of Australia’s renewable energy systems. The organisation acts on behalf of its members to lobby the government for improved policy and collaborates with the industry to advance supply and demand for clean energy.
The CEC has grown to collaborate with over 600 leading businesses and 6000 solar installers. As the organisation grew, unique sites were built to meet the needs of different audiences and to promote specific events and projects. The result was a complex network of six websites each attempting to serve a different user group.
As users landed on a CEC site, they were left scratching their heads, unsure if they had landed on the right destination. The fragmented experience made users feel lost and abandon the sites.
Evolution 7 was delighted to be appointed as the CEC’s digital agency to tackle this information architecture challenge and improve the experience of users. To redesign and redevelop a website that would meet the needs of vastly different user groups, we had to begin by getting to know them.
Thanks to extensive user research, UX design and testing, we deployed a website that serves varied users to drive business results. The design is minimal yet bold, evoking a sense of innovation. The clear and targeted navigation helps audiences find what they need instantly - minimising the need to call the organisation, giving the NFP the gift of time.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Antony Corrales (Project Manager)
Matt Cordell (Backend Developer)
Dan Silberry (Frontend Developer)
Tim Anderson (UX Designer)
Ember Mitchell (Digital Strategist)
Project Brief
The CEC has a noble mission to create a smarter, cleaner Australia. Therefore, the site needed a strong emphasis on attracting new members and increasing event bookings for revenue support. We balanced commercial needs with informative, educational resources that support consumers and the industry.
Operationally, the website would need to support the CEC’s staff by making it possible to automate processes and reduce inbound calls. We set out to help users find the information they needed on the site quickly so they wouldn't have to call.
Website objectives:
1. Deliver excellent service to three core audience groups: Industry (mostly members), Solar Installers and Consumers
2. Improve overall engagement and satisfaction with websites
3. Increase leads (of members and installers) and purchases (event bookings)
4. Deliver high-quality data
5. Reduce staff operating costs through automation, self-service for members and reduction in web-specific enquiries
Project Need
Due to the scale of the redevelopment, we split the project into three phases. This met the financial needs of the NFP while getting great work underway. Phase one, discussed in the following entry, focused on the strategic setup and core site development. Our first major challenge was to restructure the information architecture of six existing websites.
Understanding user needs and pain points were imperative. It would be their insights that would ultimately guide us to unite the six sites into one. It would be their needs, along with the needs of the business, that would enable us to prioritise work across three phases.
We learned early on that the CEC had faced difficulty with their pre-existing CMS. We built their new website on Craft CMS to give them an easy to use content management system. Their CRM, Salesforce, had to remain the single source of truth for customer data, so we integrated this with an API that would update data seamlessly.
Events are a vital source of income for the CEC. Instead of events having standalone sites, we brought them into the CEC’s new digital home. People can now browse events and click to book through third-party event site, Bizzabo. We modified CEC's Bizzibo page to feel like the brand for a smooth path to purchase.
User Experience
We conducted workshops and user interviews with the CEC, installers, consumers, manufacturers, retailers and members. Together with industry research and website analytics, we devised a data-driven and user-centric vision for the project.
We learned that each group had a hard time finding the information they needed, they were confused by multiple sites, and they couldn’t work out how to get in touch with the CEC. Consumers, in particular, felt overwhelmed by too much technical jargon.
UX research cemented the need for a single site: a branded home for the CEC where everyone could learn and act. It also shed light on priority audiences - in terms of size and value to the business.
We created audience personas to guide our decision making throughout. User-tested navigation ensured the proposed IA was clear and user-friendly.
Key audiences – members, consumers and industry, – can now find relevant content at the click of a button. Furthermore, a site-wide search function with category filtering makes it easy to unearth specific content instantly.
In the past, users found it challenging to find contact information on the existing site. We overhauled the contact page and increased its visibility. Contact information for various departments is now easy to discover – making the process easier for both users and staff.
Project Marketing
For a large scale project with multiple phases, digital marketing tactics would be crucial to track, monitor and optimise not just the site performance but to inform the following stages. Going beyond the baseline set up of Google Analytics, we added custom tracking to measure what matters to the CEC. Tracking allows our Digital Strategists and the CEC team to see customer journeys and understand how they use the website.
Advanced SEO allowed us to populate the CMS with metadata and migrate the link juice of the existing sites. Together with indexing the new sitemap on Google, we officially optimised the CEC’s new digital home for launch.
The project has already reaped benefits for both audience and business. We’re seeing that users are navigating quickly to resources and news, they can discover and book events, and the prominent positioning of advocacy initiatives mean consumers and industry alike can delve into the work of the CEC. Don’t just take it from us, Andreas Wenzel, Digital and Communications Manager at the CEC, had this to say:
“Evolution 7 delivered an outstanding new website for the Clean Energy Council which took a complex architecture and made our information easily accessible, visually appealing and ultimately delivered a highly improved user experience. This has been a massive improvement for our business and audience”.
Project Privacy
Standard privacy procedure was followed under best practice on all contact forms and other areas of the website where personally identifiable data was collected. In addition, we ensure that no personal information is passed through Google Analytics (e.g. email addresses). Regular penetration testing is conducted to ensure the site and server are secure. The website, hosting and infrastructure pass this testing with no significant issues identified.
Digital - Community
This category is all about helping our communities to connect and engage, from emergency services to Not for Profits to social groups, these apps and sites not may not only assist in delivery but also create efficiencies providing those at the coalface more time to do their important work whether it be fighting fires or managing the local team. It's not all serious though we're also looking for projects that work to help bring the community groups together with fun and enjoyable activities.
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