The Australian Government’s renewable energy agency, ARENA, engages with a wide range of organisations to deliver on its mission: accelerating Australia’s shift to a renewable future.

ARENA wanted a new website, aligned to their users’ and organisation’s objectives – a site that would amplify its ability to deliver grants, knowledge and networks that increase the renewable energy flowing into Australia’s energy system.

An up-to-date, responsive, website is pivotal as a platform for people to find out about ARENA’s grants, to share knowledge and to understand more about the role of renewable energy within Australia.

Through quantitative and qualitative user experience (UX) research methods, Ellis Jones defined user needs and behaviours, determined how ARENA’s current website performed against competitor websites and made recommendations to revise the site architecture and deliver an improved user journey for each of ARENA’s varied audiences.

Enhancing the website’s ability to showcase ARENA’s work, visually, and to signpost pathways for users was fundamental to the new site’s design.
With the introduction of contrasting colours from ARENA’s colour palette, the revised design was able to draw attention to headings and calls-to-action. A stronger use of imagery and graphics throughout all page templates enabled ARENA to make productive use of its extensive, existing image library. The resulting site design plainly showcases ARENA’s achievements, as well as providing defined user pathways for people seeking funding and knowledge – the core functions ARENA is mandated to deliver and the main reasons users seek to engage with the agency.

Ellis Jones delivered ARENA’s site architecture, design and functionality, in a way that seamlessly combines organisational objectives with user needs, based on UX findings.

The result is a site structure that singles-out key goals and pathways, as well as a offering a fresh visual style. Created within existing brand guidelines, page layouts apply images and photography to showcase what ARENA is all about, what it has achieved and what it has to offer.

A content rich site, of more than 600 pages, we also implemented a high functioning search feature so users can now apply simple filters to navigate dense information simply and quickly. Ellis Jones offers continued website support to ARENA.