2019 - A Year in Review

With major digital projects launched and more awards won, here we look back on some of the highlights for us in 2019.

New digital projects launched

During the course of 2019, there were a large number of projects delivered for a variety of different clients, from charities to public sector to commercial sites. We partnered with some fantastic organisations to advise and guide them on their digital transformation journey, and we look forward to continuing the trusted digital advisor to these clients in 2020.

Here's just a brief overview of just some of the projects we worked on.

Bóthar

Bóthar have a trustworthy reputation for taking action on international aid that provides poverty-stricken families with the means to solve their problems permanently. They help ensure families overcome hunger, malnutrition and poverty in a simple and sustainable manner by donating animals, trees, bio gas and water systems to families throughout the world. They also accept donations online and purchase these life-saving gifts and transport them to the communities in need.

Bóthar’s aim for their new website was to increase visitor engagement, improve the user experience and to increase donations on the website. To facilitate this strategy, we undertook a ground-up user research approach, including multiple workshops, persona definition, interviews and surveys. We reviewed the website holistically and examined the major pain points experienced by the visitors, and set about solving them through improved user flows and a modern, user-friendly design.

The result was an award winning website, which has seen an increase in the number of visitors to the site, a decrease in the number of calls from frustrated users and more importantly, a 100% increase in donations. Find out more about the project in our case study.

Sport Ireland

Sport Ireland promotes and fosters participation in sport, high performance sport, anti-doping, coaching and the development and management of the Sport Ireland Campus.

Sport Ireland’s aim for the website was to create a “one-stop-shop” for all areas of work managed by both commercial and non-commercial departments of the organisation, to replace their previously fragmented digital experience. This is where Annertech came in.

We partnered with Sport Ireland to carry out an in-depth user research and design process. We met with multiple stakeholder groups to better understand their needs and goals for the site, while also carrying out one-to-one interviews and surveys. All of this cumulated in a stunning new website, which reflects the organisation's new brand and structure.

Other work

Above is just a taster of some of the projects we've worked over this last year. We also delivered a wide variety of other projects, for charities such as LauraLynn and MS Ireland, and for other organisations such as Fingal County Council and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

And then of course, let's not forget all the other clients we continue to maintain, support, host and develop new features and functionality for.

Awards

In addition to launching many successful new projects, we also won some awards! First, the new site we created for Bóthar, won the Social Impact Award at the UX Awards and was subsequently shortlisted in the Digital for Good Category at the Spiders Awards. In addition, Glanbia's Optimum Nutrition education site won not only the Best in Lifestyle & Health award but also the Grand Prix at the Spiders Awards.

We are absolutely delighted and honoured with the recognition of our team's hard work and their dedication to delivering the best outcomes for our clients.

Events

Continually improving our skills and sharing our knowledge and experience with others is important to us at Annertech. So we were delighted to be able to speak at DrupalCon Amsterdam, Frontend United, and DevOps Days this year.

At DrupalCon Amsterdam, we had no less than 3 sessions! First, our Head of Development, Mark, took to the stage to give a live demo on "Using GatsbyJS to build a decoupled (Drupal) website", while senior developer, David Thorne, spoke on his journey on "Beating imposter syndrome and burnout". Meanwhile myself and our Director of Support, Anthony Lindsay, were on the main stage talking about the benefits of "Making Support the Backbone of your Business".

At Frontend United Mark gave a modified version of the "Using GatsbyJS to build a Decoupled Website" presentation, and while there was offered, and accepted, a place on the board of Frontend United. Congratulations Mark!

Then to cap it off, just a few weeks later, our Director of Infrastructure, Alan Burke, was at DevOps Days where he spoke about "Reducing Complexity with JAMStack".

New team members

2019 was a great year for us at Annertech. Not only did we win awards and launch new projects, but 2019 also saw our team grow by 33% with the addition of 7 new team members.

Welcome to Spyros, Petr, Layal, Claire, Emily, Christopher and Samer!

Roll on 2020!

We couldn't have had such an exceptional year without an exceptional team. I'm really proud of what we've achieved this year, and would like to thank the entire team for their continued dedication and enthusiasm. Here's to an incredible team, incredible clients and hopefully another incredible year in 2020!

From all of us at Annertech, happy new year!