North Sydney Council

North Sydney Council

Transforming business processes and driving accessible, customer-centric online services

North Sydney Council website homepage

Customer-centric website design transforms online service delivery

Using the Jadu Digital Platform, North Sydney Council is providing customer-centric online services and has improved web accessibility via its newly designed website.

North Sydney Council borders Sydney's harbour and was formed as an authority in 1890. Over 72,000 residents call the area home and rely on a range of public sector services from the authority.

 

The Challenge

North Sydney Council used a Content Management System (CMS) solution that wasn’t meeting expectations and became unsupported. The council became at risk of not having a website or facing excessive costs to change or fix anything on their existing website.

This prompted a move to a modern platform that would enhance usability, improve online interactions, and streamline services for residents. The new platform needed to meet rising digital expectations while maintaining traditional communication options, such as telephone support, for accessibility.

The Council sought to modernize its approach to web management, shifting from static brochure-like content to a dynamic platform that centralized services, enabled secure online payments, and simplified processes for faster action.

This effort aligned with its Community Strategic Plan’s values of collaboration, innovation, and sustainability and supported its commitment to accessibility through the Disability Inclusion Action Plan and Access and Inclusion Committee. The transformation reflects a focus on improving the resident experience and ensuring services are inclusive, efficient, and user-friendly.

North Sydney Council logo

The Solution

North Sydney Council now operates a modern digital platform that aligns with residents’ expectations, choosing the Jadu Digital Platform after a thorough procurement process.

Known for its flexibility and scalability, the platform enables mobile-responsive sites with role-based approvals to ensure consistent content and offers tools like modules and task-oriented buttons for efficient page building.

Accessibility was a key focus of the transition, with improvements such as enhanced navigation, e-reader compatibility, clear imagery, Alt tags, and simpler language. These changes were supported by internal training on accessibility benefits and compliance.

Jadu conducted eye-tracking user testing with a diverse group of stakeholders, including residents, staff, and elected members, to validate the design and refine it before launch. As a result of these efforts, the Council significantly improved its Silktide accessibility score in April 2023, and still ranks highly today.

The Jadu control centre sat next to the Sydney Council homepage
A laptop on the beach showing North Sydney Councils website

The Results

North Sydney Council has an accessible and end-to-end website that has reduced demands on its call centre, retained traffic, reduced PDFs and has been well received by the local community.

As the Council continues its digital strategy review, it plans to use the Jadu Galaxies sites option to launch sites for key facilities within a centralised system.

The Jadu Digital Platform will also enhance business processes at North Sydney Council, which plans to directly link papers from the Council meetings and committees to the site, which will save time and provide this information to residents via the website.

Work continues on the modernisation of forms, transaction and customer experience processes.

Download the full case study

 

 

Download the full case study