Te Papa updates its web architecture

A re-platform means lifting and shifting Te Papa’s existing website to a new technology, rebuilding it more or less “as is”, without major changes to content, design or layout.

Te Papa is the latest in a growing number of organisations that Haunt has worked with to re-platform their website over the past few years. The benefit of a re-platform like this is that it unlocks the benefits of modern web technologies without a massive design rethink.

Adrian Kingston, Head of Digital Channels at Te Papa, points out that “Te Papa’s pretty big for a New Zealand site - it has a lot of content. One thing that makes it different from a lot of publicly funded sites is that in terms of content, more is more”.

In their case, Te Papa has moved from Drupal to a “Jamstack” web architecture.

Read article: Re-platforming websites onto Jamstack

“A key and fundamental benefit of the use of Jamstack is that we’ve been able to bring the site in house. This has allowed us to be closer to the tech, move faster, and better”, Kingston told us.

An example of how their new website has changed how they work is that the modern architecture supports rapid, continuous deployment. This means lots of little changes with a streamlined process for QA and code review.

“We’ve been a bit conditioned to make big-bang deployments once a fortnight. Now we are often deploying several times a day. This introduces a velocity to our work that wasn’t there before.”

Part of the more modern web ecosystem is the use of superior, cloud-based search tools. Te Papa is using Algolia, which Haunt uses a lot because it has great developer tools, is super fast and highly configurable.

According to Kingston “this introduced an immediate step-change in the quality of our site search behaviour and results, which has genuine implications for how we manage content in the future.”

Supporting audiences to more easily access relevant content from Te Papa’s massive content library reduces the pressure on site structure and navigation.

At Haunt we’ve found that a key benefit of re-platform projects is to limit the scope of the project. Many website rebuilds include a redesign of the site’s layout, look and feel and content structure.

But we’ve found this isn’t necessary, or even desirable when taking on a large re-platform like Te Papa.

By keeping as much of the existing site “as is” during the project, it is possible to move quickly and reduce complexity.

This means parking some improvements, knowing they’ll need to be addressed post go-live. This can seem counterintuitive to traditional web rebuilds, which can be seen as an opportunity to tackle everything all at once.

In the case of Te Papa, they did quite a lot of content work beforehand, reducing and re-organising content. During the project Te Papa took the opportunity to reduce some visual complexity, but most of the changes are imperceptible to casual audiences.

Kingston highlights that the new platform will allow for more rapid iteration and continuous improvement - “there’s plenty we can do from here.”

Moving to modern web architecture involves a mindset shift about what is involved in owning and managing enterprise websites, and what is possible.

“We loved working with Haunt. Their systems and processes are solid, but what we valued most was that they shared our vision for what was possible with modern web technology and what it could truly mean for Te Papa”, Kingston notes.

In terms of the actual project, Adrian’s pleased with how it went. “I really can’t believe how smoothly it went. SEO hasn’t dropped off at all, and the new CMS is fast and easy for content editors.”

In the case of this project, Haunt was happy to work alongside Te Papa’s internal development team. Managed well, this can be a great arrangement for projects like this one, where the internal team brings their knowledge of their site’s content and functionality while being supported by Haunt’s experience successfully delivering similar projects.

Partnerships