Every five years, the Department of the Environment and Energy publishes the State of Environment Report (SoE). The Department needed to move this comprehensive record, full of vital environmental insights, from print to online in order to meet stakeholder expectations. In partnership with Acquia and Doghouse, the Department launched soe.environment.gov.au in only 12 months. For the first time, the digital report is mobile first, WCAG 2.0 AA compliant and offers various report stakeholders an engaging and intuitive experience. Built with Drupal and GovCMS the State of the Environment Report bought in-depth and complex data to life and raised the bar of what is possible in data visualisation.

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Case Study
The State Of The Environment Report (SoE)
For The Department of The Environment and Energy

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The Department of the Environment
and Energy publishes the State of
the Environment Report (SoE)
every five years.

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The report was traditionally
published into a printable format.
That format was no longer meeting
user needs.

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The print document had limitations and disadvantages
which include:
● Physical size and weight
● The environmental impact of printing copies
● The slow and laborious work of extracting
information from it.

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The Department of the Environment
and Energy needed to move the
report online in order to make it
more accessible, environmentally
responsible, integrative and
comparative.

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The 1000+ page document
contains comprehensive
information and data that is used
as both a system of record and a
source of information.
The information is utilised by:
● Policy makers
● Academics
● Researchers
● Public servants
● Interested parties
The Report

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Doghouse Engagement

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The Report Engagement
Doghouse
Doghouse engaged in:
● UX
● IA
● Design
● Development
● Innovation

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The Significance of Bringing the
SoE Report Online

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“The significance of the State of the
Environment Report is that it allows
policy-makers, researchers and
educational institutions to gain an
understanding of that
snapshot-in-time of the state of
Australia's environment”.
Quote by Megan Watson
The Department needed to bring
this comprehensive report
online to meet the needs of
stakeholders - online access to
accurate and comparable data.

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By bringing the report online it would become:
● Environmentally responsible
● Interactive
● More accessible
● Engaging

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In addition, it would make decades
of environmental information
available in a single location.

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“ “ The digital format came about
because we identified a need to
keep up with our user's
expectation of being able to
interact with material online and to
be able to find information on the
web now rather than going to a
printed version of the report”
Quote by Megan Watson

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Going Digital
Breaking
Conventions

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The project broke with the traditional
government conventions of printed reports
and modernised the way constituents interact
with government generated information.

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In addition to delivering the current report online, it
was also important to:
● Bring past reports online
● Prepare to bring future reports online

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“ “We're trying to meet core principles of
allowing users to choose their own pathway
through the site, to interact with and download
data and to be able to track changes over time
in SoE reporting. We had very complex
scientific graphs that we needed to present on
the website to allow people to interact with.
Quote from Megan Watson

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“ It was very much a three way
relationship between the
Department of Environment and
Energy, Acquia, and Doghouse.
Doghouse were the primary
partners with us for developing all
of the interactive features
Quote by Megan Watson

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“ We had a great agile development
approach and a very collaborative
nature of working with Doghouse
and Acquia really meant that the
project was set up to be a success
from the start”.
Quote by Megan Watson

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Challenges

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Bringing the SoE report online had a
number of challenges. Firstly, the
complexity of the data meant the
digital version of the report had to
be both accessible and engaging.

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This was the first time the
Department would publish the
report in both the traditional
printed version and in the digital
version.

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Dual Publication Created Challenges
● Dual content authoring as any amendments in the printed version had
to be reflected in the digital version.
● Peer review was also a challenge as data sets needed to be updated by
subject experts. The SoE report has more than 770 stakeholders that
range from the core SoE team, authors, public servants, contributors,
policy makers, academics and the Steering Committee.
● A final challenge was the satisfaction of the Digital Service Standards
of the Australian Government Digital Transformation Agency.

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The Solution

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To meet the core requirements the Department of the
Environment and Energy chose to build on the Drupal based
govCMS platform in partnership with Doghouse and Acquia.
The publication of the SoE report online was one of the most
challenging tasks implemented on the govCMS platform.
Acquia recommended Doghouse, due to our Drupal expertise,
to lead the Drupal implementation.
The Solution: govCMS and Drupal

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“ It was a brilliant way of developing
a really complex website with
complex requirements that were
changing almost daily, and Acquia
and Doghouse worked together
beautifully.
Quote by Megan Watson

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“ “The development process
with Doghouse is by far the
best process that I have ever
worked on”
Quote by Megan Watson

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“ “They were always very
encouraging of the ideas that I
had, of what I wanted the site to be
able to do, and they found really
innovative solutions to how those
features would be developed”
Quote by Megan Watson

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User Experience

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The site architecture of the
new digital SoE puts the
users first.
User Centred
Design
This is shown through the
intuitive functionality and
interactivity that makes it
easier to:
● Search
● Find
● Compare
● Interact
With data and information

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The platform encourages comparison between
reports, interaction with maps and graphs and
the filter of content by theme.

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Tech Specs

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The report uses SaaS with extensive theme
customisation and is built and delivered on the
govCMS platform (Drupal).
*govCMS, including the graphing module
('govCMS CKAN'): *https://github.com/govCMS
*SoE Digital theme: https://lnkd.in/gaMbQij
*TerriaJS: https://lnkd.in/gtPZkcA

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Delivery Outcomes
The Collaboration Between Doghouse and Acquia

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For the first time, the digital report
is mobile first, WCAG 2.0 AA
compliant and offers various report
stakeholders an engaging and
intuitive experience.

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The 2011 and 2016 reports were
delivered online. This enabled the
use of web-based, comprehensive
comparative environmental data for
the first time.

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● Online delivery of the 2011
and 2016 SoE report
● Full WCAG.20 compliance
● The delivery is user-centric,
accessible and interactive
● In the first year 1800 data
sets are downloaded
The Online Delivery
● In the first year 1800 data
sets are downloaded
● Delivery of 10 years of
environmental data in a
single location
● Environmental goals met
with a reduction of print
requirements

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The Results

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Stakeholders were provided with a decade of
environmental data in a single location through
the delivery of the 2011 and the 2016 reports.
When the 2021 report is delivered there will be
15 years of intuitive, interactive and
comparative data available for the public and all
interested parties.

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“ “We see the combination of Drupal and the
govCMS platform as an incredibly powerful
provider of information delivery - this is what’s
innovative about the govCMS platform and
what is was designed to enable - innovation …
Quote by Megan Watson

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“ ...our users can carve up the content in so
many different ways - essentially it’s user
defined.
That’s vastly different to what you can do with
a static report. We now have so many different
ways to surface information and aggregate it,
so it fulfills different user requirements for
accessing different levels of information.”
Quote by Megan Waton

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Award Winning

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The partnership between Doghouse and the
Department of the Environment and Energy
earned the 2017 Acquia Engage Award for Best
Public Sector project.

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“ “The project within a government context has been
incredibly well received. We’ve seen a steady increase
in the take-up of the digital platform. We've had a lot of
feedback from people saying they are really happy to
see that the data is available to interact with and
download. We feel like we're hitting our target audience
which is great.
Quote by Megan Watson

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“ I would not hesitate if the option
arose to work with Acquia and
Doghouse again”.
Quote by Megan Watson

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See The Video - https://vimeo.com/241134911

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Reference/Quotes
All quotes from:
Megan Watson
Assistant Director - State of the Environment Section
Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy
https://vimeo.com/241134911

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Thank You
www.doghouse.agency