Improved Search, Sign-Ups and Conversions

The challenge: improve two live Drupal sites without breaking what works

Both sites are managed by multiple teams across the Cymru Wales brand, each needing to publish and amend content freely, without any one change putting brand consistency at risk. Maintaining that brand integrity was a requirement the Welsh Government set out from the start.

On top of that, government sites have to meet WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards and work fully in both Welsh and English. Any improvement to engagement had to hold all of that in place, not trade it away. This is the kind of work Drupal is built for: granular editorial permissions, accessibility support in core, and mature multi-language handling. The task was to use those strengths rather than fight them.

Our approach: an embedded team, Drupal expertise, and evidence over guesswork

Box UK worked as an extension of the Welsh Government’s brand, digital and content teams. Developers, QA engineers and a project manager embedded alongside them rather than working at arm’s length, providing support, maintenance and continued Drupal development across both sites. We ran the work in sprints, so the team saw clearly defined outcomes at regular points rather than waiting for a big reveal.

To decide what to build, we used Hypothesis Driven Development (HDD). Instead of guessing, each change started as a specific, testable claim about how the site would perform, drawn from real user behaviour. We agreed each one with the content and digital team, then tested it and let the results decide.

What we built on Drupal

The work ranged from new features to smaller components, each tied to a metric and each built to work with Drupal’s content model rather than around it.

A new search block made relevant content easier to find and lifted search volume. A survey pop-up gave the team a direct line to visitors and drove newsletter sign-ups. Parallax animations let editors emphasise parts of an article without leaning on a separate publishing licence, cutting cost as well as improving the reading experience.

Throughout, Drupal’s permissions model meant editors across multiple teams kept the freedom to update their own sections in Welsh and English, while brand consistency held. That balance, open editing without loss of control, is one of the reasons Drupal suits large multi-team estates like this one.