Høyre.no: From 375 pages to a multisite!
With a number of local and county chapters, and therefore many editors, it was challenging to clearly communicate what the party stands for. That's why we were given the task of gathering all 375 pages into a multisite solution that could help the Conservatives get their message across.
Who
The Conservatives are one of Norway's largest political parties. With their liberal-conservative foundation, they have repeatedly formed governments in Norway. In the 2023 municipal elections, the Conservatives became Norway's largest party.
The challenge
The party has a large infrastructure that works with communication and messaging. The website is therefore an important channel for communicating the Conservatives' policies. Not only to potential and existing voters, but also to elected representatives and volunteers.
The Conservatives wanted a CMS that would not only meet the communication needs of høyre.no, but also those of the county and local branches. There was need for a solution that ensured that editors with varying knowledge of WordPress were able to build content in a professional manner.
"We wanted a modular approach, where we could work with an agency to define which blocks we needed. We wanted it to be a breeze to build websites for the main organization and local chapters - and not an embarrassing affair"
Christian A. Schjelderup, digital advisor for the Conservative parliamentary group.
The result
Høyre.no may look like just one website. Some even think it's built with a simple WordPress theme. The truth is a long way off. It consists of over 375 different websites in a network. Each site has its own editorial team, and different super users can assist and override content.
- "Without our elected representatives and contributors in local teams, we wouldn't be much. That's why it's so important to have a good multisite, so that those in the local teams also have a toolbox they can use to communicate in the best possible way," says Christian A. Schjelderup, digital advisor for the Conservative parliamentary group.
The current website was developed ahead of the 2021 election, and started at the end of May/beginning of June 2020. Dekode works continuously with the Conservatives on further development and maintenance.
Here's how we went about it
Focus on a simple editorial experience
375 websites and an even higher number of editors challenged us to think differently when it came to user interfaces. We ended up developing a simplified user interface for local chapters. In fact, we developed two different levels: Advanced and Basic. For editors on the national platform, however, you have a more sophisticated interface, with far more options.
Design and UX
The Conservatives' visual identity was developed by the Conservatives themselves, with communications advisor and head of visual design, Christian Hushovd, at the helm. Dekode's designer further collaborated with Hushovd to challenge and to create a design adapted to modern digital surfaces. The delivery from Dekode is not a locked template, but a design system of modules and patterns. This provides great flexibility and scalability.
We carried out a major analysis of content structure and user flow in the initial phase of the project. This resulted in a navigation concept and a page structure that, with few changes, is still in use three years later.
- “It's clear that the new website affects how we communicate. The new Høyre.no makes available and presents our program and election promises in the best possible way, so that voters can make the easiest possible choice," says Christian A. Schjelderup, digital advisor for the Conservative Party's parliamentary group.
Development and implementation
The website has a high level of technical complexity with expanded "my page" functionality (Mitt Høyre), customized membership forms and integrations with various payment solutions. Much of the content on the old site was programmatically migrated from the old to the new website. Something that saved the Conservatives a lot of work.
Since its launch, Mitt Høyre has been further developed and the content is largely personalized to the role of the member who is logged in. There, they can easily edit their own profile and pay for a new membership. This gives the Conservatives a golden opportunity to communicate directly with their members.
The fact that everything is gathered in a WordPress network simplifies both maintenance and functionality and can be shared across the entire network. If a module is developed on høyre.no that is of value to a local team, this module can be activated with the click of a button. The synergies are great. Both in the form of lower development costs, but also maintenance as all the websites share the same code base.
We delivered
- Analysis and insights
- Consulting services
- Visual identity
- Development
- Project management
- Integrations
