Challenge
Northern Powergrid’s website is the primary digital shop window for a business serving more than eight million customers across the North East, Yorkshire, and northern Lincolnshire. Over time, the absence of single ownership led to thousands of pages, disjointed journeys and diluted brand clarity. Critical information was difficult to locate, accessibility issues had been flagged in a BSI audit, and customer experience varied significantly depending on the task. During major incidents, traffic surges increased pressure on clarity, resilience, and communication. Northern Powergrid needed to modernise the experience without destabilising its complex, business-critical Drupal estate, while also fulfilling ED2 commitments concerning customer service, accessibility, and digital engagement.
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Solution
We approached the programme as a strategic transformation rather than just a visual refresh. Our work began with a comprehensive audit of the existing estate, mapping content sprawl, duplication, and gaps against actual user needs. Through structured stakeholder sessions, we aligned internal teams around clear ownership, success metrics, and a shared understanding of what the website needed to be.
Audience mapping and journey design became the core of the solution. We defined straightforward, task-oriented pathways for customers, job seekers, partners, media, and regulators, with a strict design principle: three clicks or fewer to access key services. This led to a significantly simplified sitemap and navigation model that reduced cognitive load while maintaining the depth required of a regulated utility. Accessibility was embedded end-to-end to WCAG AA as a baseline.
From a design and delivery perspective, we created a modern, adaptable front-end system that operated within Drupal v10 constraints while significantly improving usability, consistency, and performance. Visual prototypes demonstrated responsive behaviour across different devices, with clear guidance for internal development teams and TCS on implementation, testing, and deployment. We also developed a major-incident communications framework, ensuring emergency messaging could take priority during peak demand without compromising site stability or service access.
Results
The programme delivered a future-ready website blueprint that greatly enhanced clarity, navigation, and accessibility while accommodating the operational realities of a large, cloud-hosted Drupal estate. A simplified information architecture made critical services quicker to find and easier to complete, reduced unnecessary journeys, and established a scalable foundation for ongoing improvements to the customer experience. Accessibility risks flagged in previous audits were addressed at a structural level, giving the organisation confidence in long-term compliance rather than short-term fixes.
Most importantly, the work laid a sturdy foundation that Northern Powergrid can build upon, measure, and evolve over time. The platform facilitates better self-service, clearer communication, and more effective incident response, all while remaining stable, resilient, and maintainable—ensuring long-term value rather than a short-term refresh.