This page outlines common considerations for launching a successful website.
Brand
The NSW Government logo and visual identity is the primary branding for all NSW Government agencies, entities, programs and campaigns. All brands default to the masterbrand category unless a formal brand exemption has been approved under the Brand Framework by the Minister for Digital and Minister for Customer Service.
Below is an overview of the Brand Architecture system for NSW Government.
- Masterbrand - there are two categories under the Masterbrand classification:
- Masterbrand corporate - uses the NSW Government visual identity system. Core red, blue and grey families are used.
- Masterbrand non-corporate - uses the NSW Government visual identity system. An extended colour palette is available from which a limited colour family can be chosen.
- Co-brand - uses the NSW Government visual identity system with the addition of a co-brand logo to be placed after the NSW Waratah.
- Endorsed - uses a custom visual identity system with a custom logo and the NSW Waratah as a secondary logo.
- Independent - uses a subset of the NSW Government visual identity system with a typographic logo only.
- Stand-alone - uses a custom visual identity system and a custom logo (no NSW Waratah).
Want to know more?
More information about the NSW Government Brand Framework including information about brand exemption applications can be found on the NSW Government website.
Budget
Budget requirements depend on your brand category. If your new website does not have a brand exemption, you can use the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure Rapid Start templates on the Drupal CMS to fast track your website launch. More information on the Rapid Start templates can be found on the Rapid Start page. Depending on your requirements, your new website could cost between $60,000 for a basic agency website and $500,000 for a highly customised program or campaign website.
If your website has been granted a brand exemption, the cost of launching a new website will significantly increase. The project phases and indicative costing for a brand exempt website project are listed below.
| Phase | Indicative cost | Additional information |
| Brand development | $100,000 - $300,000 | Website brand development including colours, fonts, iconography and photography guidelines. |
| User Experience (UX) research and design | $150,000 - $350,000 | Understand your audience and their needs, design the website based on the brand guidelines and provide a handover to the technical development team. |
| Content development | $90,000 - $300,000 | Develop the web copy/content that will make up your website. |
| Drupal development | $70,000 - $600,000 | Technical development required to deliver the website based on the designs provided from the UX phase. |
| Testing | $45,000 - $150,000 | Functional testing, Accessibility testing, security penetration testing and facilitation of User acceptance testing. |
| Project coordination | $20,000 - $150,000 | Coordination of the project teams during the project lifecycle. |
| Miscellaneous costs | $40,000 - $80,000 | Managing the procurement processes, domain configuration, and providing Content Management System (CMS) training to your team upon handover of the website. |
| Ongoing hosting and support | $35,000 - $70,000 | Annual cost to host and support the website for its lifetime. |
| Total | $450,000 - $1,900,000 | |
Best practice approach
The best approach to building a new website is to work towards a Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) using an agile methodology. This involves designing and building the simplest starting point for your website, and advanced or complex non-critical features will remain on your product backlog. Over time, you can prioritise features on your backlog to add to your website experience.
User needs and research
During this phase, user research will be conducted to gather information about users and their behaviours, preferences and needs. This can be achieved through surveys, interviews, usability testing and reviewing analytics. Information is gathered and validated to inform later design.
User experience design
User experience design (UX design) is the process of designing digital products such as websites, applications, and software with a focus on creating a positive and meaningful experience for the end user. The goal of UX design is to make your website intuitive, easy to use, and enjoyable for users.
During this phase, UX designers will conduct user research to understand the different audiences you want to reach, create user flows or customer journeys that your audiences will follow, design wireframes or mock-ups of your website and then test the usability with a sample audience.
Developing your website
During the development phase, the Digital Experience and Solutions team will bring your designs to life. The Drupal Content Management System (CMS) is the primary platform used and recommended by Digital Experience and Solutions for all department websites. Most projects will run in agile sprints, meaning features are regularly handed over for testing as they're developed, rather than developing and testing everything separately. This agile process will expedite the development and testing phases, allowing your website to be launched quicker.
Testing
The testing phase will generally run in parallel with the development phase. In Functional Testing, any issues which are impacting the expected performance of website features will be resolved. Any change requests will remain on the backlog for prioritisation once all major issues have been resolved.
Accessibility testing is conducted once features are developed to ensure they adhere to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the latest W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Security penetration testing is conducted to ensure the website is secured against external threats and adheres to CyberNSW standards.
The final phase of testing is User Acceptance Testing (UAT), where the website owners ensure the website meets expectations and is free from issues.
Ready for service
The ready for service phase includes a go/no-go meeting with the business owners of the website, final governance steps, go-live preparation and deployment. During the go/no-go meeting, the business owners will provide endorsement for the website to go live on a scheduled date. Once a ‘go’ has been provided, the DE&S team will submit a Change Request to the Change Advisory Board (CAB) in the Digital Information Office (DIO).
The CAB reviews all deployments to production environments (live websites), and will review all development plans, testing outcomes, approvals, security, compliance requirements and rollback plans in case anything goes awry during the deployment of the website. Once CAB approval has been received, the website is able to be launched.
Continuous improvement
Once your website is live and available to the public, you will enter the cycle of continuous improvement. Utilising all of the tools in the digital toolbox, you will be able to review and improve your website over time to ensure it continues to meet your audience needs. Below are some of the services you can leverage to keep your website relevant and useful to its broadest audience.