Website Case Study: High Court of Australia Case Study

The High Court is the highest court in the Australian judicial system, and was established in 1901 by Section 71 of the Constitution. The functions of the High Court are to interpret and apply the law of Australia; to decide cases of special federal significance including challenges to the constitutional validity of laws and to hear appeals, by special leave, from Federal, State and Territory courts. The new High Court website acts as a central point of information relating to cases and the High Court. PB Web Development crafted a creative interface that is not only visually appealing, but is also built to meet web accessibility standards.

Client: High Court of Australia
URL: http://www.hcourt.gov.au
Development Time: 11 months
Category: Federal Government

Client Bio

The High Court of Australia is the highest level of the Australian court system and the final stage for appeals in the legal system. Situated in the nation’s capital city, Canberra, the High Court of Australia has seen many high profile cases pass through its doors. The original website was created in the early 2000s.

Developer: PB Web Development (PBWEBDEV)
URL: PBWebDev.com.au

About Us

PB Web Development is an Adelaide and Sydney, Australia based web design and development company. PB Web Development builds Joomla! websites for small to medium sized businesses and for non-profit and Government agencies.

Development Team

The core design and development team for the High Court project consisted of Peter Bui, who built the Joomla! website, and Martina Kocian, who designed the website. Shannon Briggs also worked on content migration and template tweaking closer to the end of the project.

The Challenge

The design of the new website is a large stepping stone from the previous website that was originally built back in 2001. The new website had to be not only web accessible, but also meet usability tests. Martina Kocian designed the first few drafts of the website that went through our own internal usability testing methods before being presented to the client.

The Australian Government also requires that all Federal Government websites to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards by the end of 2014. This meant that all new websites should meet the WCAG 2 success criteria upon launch.

The Extensions

The build of the website used various Joomla! extensions including, JoomlaWork front page slide show, JoomlArt T3 template framework, JCalPro and the K2 content construction kit.

List of Extensions Used:

• K2 – http://getk2.org/
• T3 Framework – http://wiki.joomlart.com/wiki/JA_T3_Framework_2/Overview
• JCalPro – http://dev.anything-digital.com/

The Results

The combination of Joomla!, K2 and the T3 framework provided the High Court with the perfect solution that they required for their new website. The new platform allowed for quick content editing, and the ability to easily grow and expand their online presence.