The ICRC is a neutral and independent organization that provides protection and humanitarian assistance to people affected by armed conflicts and violence. With operations in over 90 countries and more than 18,000 staff members in the field, the ICRC reaches a diverse international audience.
The redesign of its website aimed to enhance accessibility, performance, and navigation while ensuring multilingual compatibility.
About the project
Migrating a large volume of content while modernizing the CMS and optimizing the user experience.
The ICRC needed to upgrade an outdated version of its CMS to ensure security and performance. The goal was to streamline the content architecture while improving the site’s performance and accessibility. Key challenges included:
- Migrating a substantial amount of historical content
- Managing content in eight languages, including Arabic
- Creating 300 new pages while ensuring consistency and content accuracy
- Optimizing performance to deliver a seamless user experience, especially on mobile devices
Coordinating and ensuring a multilingual migration while guaranteeing optimal performance and a seamless user experience.
The project was complex due to the linguistic diversity and the varied needs of ICRC users worldwide. The main challenge was to manage the migration in a way that would not disrupt the user experience while ensuring fast and accessible navigation for all.
Modular migration, continuous optimization, and improved user experience
Smile Switzerland analyzed more than 40 proposed wireframes to develop a modular approach tailored to the ICRC's needs. The main pages were designed and validated. To tackle the migration challenge, multiple phases of migration, testing, and adjustments were carried out, resulting in a product that not only successfully migrated the content but also ensured it was fully editable.
A faster, more accessible, and user-friendly website for a global audience
The redesign simplified navigation, improved accessibility, and delivered 300 new pages in eight languages. Key outcomes included:
- Content efficiency: 300 new pages created, ensuring consistency across all languages.
- Improved speed and accessibility: Significant reduction in loading times and compliance with WCAG accessibility standards.
- User satisfaction: Initial user feedback has been positive, with enhanced navigation and usability, especially on mobile devices.
- Performance and analytics: Ongoing stabilization of traffic following the archiving of a large volume of outdated content.
Why Drupal was chosen
The project involved migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10. The client was already highly satisfied with the solution. Their internal teams were trained in Drupal development, and they wanted to build on this expertise to continue working with a proven and well-understood solution.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
