Case study: Re-platforming Asia New Zealand sites

This is another of a string of re-platform projects we've been doing for clients at Haunt, and part of our increasing use of modern web architecture like Jamstack.

A couple of other recent examples of re-platform works includes Te Papa Tongarewa and Lite ‘n Easy.

Read article: Re-platforming websites onto Jamstack

Both Asia New Zealand Foundation and the Asia Media Centre are very content-driven, in that they're regularly publishing articles and information for their audiences including their large newsletter databases.

A key driver of this re-platform was to use the greater flexibility offered by the headless CMS approach and the use of DatoCMS which offers a very modern user experience for content editors.

For AMC, the re-platform means the team can more quickly and easily publish articles.

Asia Media Centre Manager Graeme Acton says, “the previous site was really complicated to use. Compared to Silverstripe the new platform is a ‘game changer’. Thanks very much for making my life easier!”

For Asia New Zealand, the re-platform is an investment in being able to bring more interactive and engaging content types, such as the infographics that they have already started using, for example in their Perceptions of Asia Report.

Asia New Zealand has a strong focus on platform security. Their previous platforms were secure but aging, and increasing the possibility of risk. Modern web architecture has a reduced attack surface compared to traditional web applications.

The monthly web costs have halved, and ongoing enhancements and continuous improvements are also easier to implement and, therefore, less expensive.

Read the article: Lower costs of using Jamstack

Overall, the site designs were still fresh and relevant (shout out to the former Chrome Toaster crew) so we only made minor design enhancements to modernise the look a bit and make the site more responsive.

Asia Media Centre got a bit more of a makeover, but overall we heavily leveraged the existing designs to keep the project within a much tighter budget than would have been the case otherwise.

The team are stoked with the result and we are looking forward to evolving the sites with the crew at Asia New Zealand — they’ve got bold ideas for the future and the new platform will support them really well.