UNGENEVA.ORG — Redesign Approach & Concept

The Brief

• ungeneva.org is the digital front door of the UN in Geneva — press centre, meeting information, topics, the Blue Book directory, and visitor services across six official languages.
• The current site works but carries visible frontend debt: a 10-second+ intro animation pattern, legacy CSS/JS hotfixes, no image optimization (JPG/SVG only), HTTP/1.1 delivery, and a faceted search that can be made far more useful.
• The redesign must modernize the experience without losing the content model, multilingual setup, or institutional trust that the site already has.

Audit Findings

• Drupal 11, server-rendered, Varnish edge cache (~30-day TTL), HTTP/1.1, no CDN.
• 6 languages (en/fr/es/ar/ru/zh-hans), 2,000+ sitemap URLs, hreflang-alternate translations throughout.
• Search API + faceted search; first-party Matomo analytics plus 3 legacy Google Tag Manager containers.
• Internal design system theme with accumulated asset_injector hotfix patches (aria fixes, hero overrides, spacing hacks).
• Sibling apps on the same infrastructure: donate (Drupal 11) and museum (Drupal 10).
• JSON:API disabled — no public data layer for integrations, mobile, or accessibility tooling.

Approach

• Keep Drupal as the CMS (content model, workflows, i18n already live) and rebuild the presentation layer as a documented, tested component library.
• Convert the design system to tokens + Storybook; retire legacy hotfix patches; drop legacy jQuery.
• Ship a WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility pass across all six languages with automated axe + Lighthouse CI.
• Modernize the image pipeline (WebP/AVIF, responsive images, image CDN) and put a CDN + HTTP/2-3 in front of the origin.
• Enable a read-only JSON:API layer for future integrations while keeping the editorial workflow server-rendered.

Deliverables

• Design system + component library (Storybook)
• Redesigned templates for all core content types
• Accessibility report & remediation across 6 languages
• Performance budget + CDN/HTTP2-3 implementation
• Search UX improvements (facets, filters)
• Analytics consolidation (Matomo + single GTM)
• Migration plan with zero broken links
• Editor training for UNIS comms staff

Timeline

Discovery 2 wks · Design system 4 wks · Build 8 wks · Migration & QA 4 wks · Launch + handover 2 wks (~20 weeks).