Sector(s)
The regional agency supports companies that want to set up on its territory. Its investor platform presents real estate and land offers, industry sectors and company testimonials, in French and English. Parker+Parker is rebuilding it on Drupal 11, from its own Drupal base. Listing search is being redesigned, and the brand guide was made accessible before development. The project is in progress.
About the project
Results so far
- About 1,500 property listings moved into a new Drupal 11 content model, with a redirect plan for the old URLs.
- Two languages, French and English, with separate menus.
- About twelve blocks approved at the design stage, on a shared block library.
- A brand guide made accessible from the mockup stage, before development.
Goal
Make listings easier to find and meet public sector accessibility rules (the French RGAA standard).
Challenge
- The brand guide's colors and thin typefaces did not meet the required contrast levels.
- Listing search had to be simplified.
- Listings had to be migrated without losing existing links.
- A radius search often crosses administrative boundaries.
Solution
- Parallel design. Functional design and visual design run in parallel, in two-week sprints, with approvals every two weeks.
- Accessibility from the mockup stage. Contrasts recalculated, colors adjusted, typefaces that were too thin replaced. The agency chose between two options and kept solid headings.
- Content model. Listings, testimonials, and a single filterable content type for news and events. Pages are built with shared blocks.
- Search by city and radius. Visitors enter a city, choose a radius and check their criteria. The search also covers listings located beyond administrative boundaries.
- Listing migration. Migration of about 1,500 listings and a redirect plan for the old URLs.
- Shared base. Accessibility improvements made for the project, such as visible focus and reduced motion, are contributed back to Parker+Parker's Drupal 11 base.
- Onboarding and audit. A back-office onboarding workshop, then an RGAA audit after launch.
What editors do without developers
The agency's teams will manage listings, news, events and pages from the Drupal back office, with the same block library. A back-office onboarding workshop is part of the project.
Why Drupal was chosen
The regional agency needed a platform it controls, able to handle a large volume of listings in two languages and to meet French public sector accessibility rules. Drupal is open source software: the agency owns its platform. Its structured content model handles listings with typed fields, which makes radius search and filtering possible. Its multilingual system handles French and English, with separate menus, from a single administration interface. Drupal core follows WCAG accessibility guidelines, for the public site as well as the editing interface. Starting from Parker+Parker's Drupal 11 base let the team focus on the project's own needs.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Paragraphs powers the shared block library used to build the pages.
