The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) plays a critical role in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to acquire and manage land and sea Country. Operating within the Australian Government landscape, their website needed to reflect this responsibility, while meeting modern standards for accessibility, performance and long-term flexibility.
ILSC’s exisiting website was built on a legacy platform that limited accessibility, consistency and future growth. The site needed to better support users accessing information on Country, meet WCAG requirements and provide a stable foundation that could evolve alongside ILSC’s programs and priorities.
Jude was engaged to design and build a new ILSC website, migrating it to GovCMS SaaS and delivering a responsive, accessible platform aligned to the ILSC brand and ready to grow over time.
This project was delivered in partnership with Kirra Services, combining Jude’s human-centred design and delivery capability with Kirra Services’ delivery assurance and deep expertise in government digital platforms.
The goal for the new website was clarity, usability and accessibility across all devices. We focused on creating flexible page layouts and reusable components that support easy scanning, strong content hierarchy and consistent interactions across the site.
Designs were developed and tested with accessibility in mind from the outset, ensuring the site meets WCAG standards and works well for users relying on assistive technologies. Colour contrast, typography, spacing and component behaviour were all carefully considered to support readability and usability in real-world usage contexts.
The website was built on GovCMS SaaS using CivicTheme, providing a secure, compliant foundation aligned with Australian Government requirements.
Rather than using CivicTheme out of the box, we customised and extended its components to better reflect the ILSC brand and support its content needs. This included refining layouts, adjusting visual treatments and extending components to create a consistent, distinctive digital presence that still fits comfortably within the GovCMS ecosystem.
The result is a site that feels uniquely ILSC not generic or templated, while benefiting from a robust, government-supported design system.
With a significant proportion of users on country accessing the site on mobile devices, the website was designed mobile-first. Navigation, layouts and components were prioritised for smaller screens first, before scaling up to tablet and desktop.
This approach supported performance improvements and helped ensure the site remains usable in a wide range of connectivity conditions and devices.
As part of the project, we migrated the existing WordPress site to Drupal GovCMS, ensuring content was transferred accurately and efficiently.
The migration process addressed legacy issues, improved performance and ensured the new site met government expectations for security, stability and maintainability. The CMS was configured to support clear content publishing workflows, reduce risk around accessibility compliance and make ongoing content updates straightforward for internal teams.
A key requirement for the project was ensuring the website could evolve over time. The new platform is designed to be flexible and scalable, allowing new sections, features and content to be added without reworking the core site.
This future-focused approach gives ILSC a strong digital foundation, that supports long-term growth, evolving programs and changing user needs without requiring major redevelopment.
This project was delivered in partnership with Kirra Services, bringing together delivery assurance, government platform expertise and human-centred design.
Working closely with ILSC stakeholders, we delivered the project end to end, from design and build through to migration and launch. Ensuring a smooth delivery and a website that meets both user needs and organisational goals.
