CSI Media Designed and Developed a New Web Solution for Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
Award-winning design & development agency CSI Media collaborated with The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) to develop custom web solutions, especially focusing on designing a modern website that represented the prestige and officiality of the organization.
CPA, established in 1911, exists to connect, develop, and support Commonwealth Parliamentarians to increase their capacity as legislators, scrutineers, and representatives, with the ultimate aim of driving good governance, democracy, and human rights for the 2.4 billion people across the Commonwealth.
The Challenge
At the heart of The CPA is the CPA Headquarters Secretariat which supports and facilitates the administration of the organization.
Serving as the initial public-facing platform for the organization, the website is a key tool for the Secretariat to engage with its membership and the wider international community.
The Secretariat team had identified several problems with their previous website; it was dated from a design perspective, clunky, and complicated to navigate.
In addition to remedying these issues, the CPA required several pieces of functionality including a Learning Management System, Event Management, and integration with a Customer Relationship Management platform (CRM).
Following a competitive pitch, CPA appointed CSI Media to design and develop the new solution.
The Website
As the initial public-facing platform for CPA, CSI focused on designing a modern website that represented the prestige and officiality of the organization. Usability was integral to their design approach, whilst maintaining a high level of accessibility was crucial to the diverse membership.
CSI Media designed custom UIs for key landing pages, and a set of 15 components including a slideshow, a video block, and event teasers.
CSI Media’s choice of Content Management System (CMS) was Umbraco, a powerful, easy-to-use CMS where the Secretariat manage the content on their website.
Umbraco incorporates a Page Builder tool that enables CPA to build custom landing pages by adding any combination of components, helping the Secretariat to effectively engage and communicate with its wide-reaching audience.
The website includes a Directory Listing where users can search for parliamentary members via several criteria including name, country, and parliaments/legislatures. When a search is conducted, records are retrieved from the integrated CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The CPA Academy
CPA provides a curriculum of online training courses to support Parliamentarians and parliamentary officials in fulfilling their constitutional and statutory obligations.
CSI Media developed a Learning Management System, incorporating functionality that enables the Secretariat to create custom modular courses in Umbraco.
Parliamentarians can access these courses via an integrated portal and complete the associated assessments and exams.
Event Management
The Secretariat can set up events for members and parliamentarians to attend including committee meetings, conferences, and workshops.
CPA can specify the details of the event (event name, description, date & time), mark each event as either ‘public’ – which is displayed to all users on the event listing page – or ‘private’, which is invite-only, and accept/decline event-registration requests.
Finally, events are either paid or free, and, therefore, CSI Media integrated the website with Worldpay and PayPal to enable online payments.
Results
In the 12 months following launch, the new website recorded the following metrics:
- Bounce Rate = 22% Decrease
- Pages / Session = 67% Increase
- Registered Parliamentarians = 371
About CSI Media
CSI Media is a web development company with over 20 years’ experience in designing and developing custom web solutions with bespoke UI/UX design, complex functionality, and API integrations. If you have an upcoming web or software project, contact you can contact CSI Media to discuss your next project.
