The new National Audit Office website on the government portal platform

The purpose of the National Audit Office is to examine how state and local governments use public funds and what value they deliver in return. It gives Parliament and the public a clear understanding of whether public funds are used legally and effectively.

What challenges was the National Audit Office facing?

The National Audit Office’s website was outdated and needed both a visual and structural update. Like many public institutions, the Office aimed to move to the government portal platform and follow its structure and logic. At the same time, it wanted a design that would still clearly reflect the National Audit Office’s own identity.

In addition to moving to the new platform, the institution aimed to become more accessible and user-friendly so that its audits and their key messages would stand out more clearly. The old website did not allow long blocks of text to be structured properly, which meant that the value of the National Audit Office’s work did not stand out clearly. Even interesting audit reports were hard to find and read.

How did we help?

The project included strategic planning, user-centered design, and development testing. Because the new website was being built on the government portal platform, our goal was to change as little as possible to keep development costs low, but as much as needed to create a clear and distinctive visual identity for the National Audit Office.

1. Updating the Visual Identity for the Website

• Worked closely with the National Audit Office team and the new visual identity for the website was based on the National Audit Office style book.
• Created a modern color palette that meets WCAG accessibility standards.
• Selected and adapted a new font to improve readability.
• Developed a clear and consistent visual style to give the website a unified look and feel.

2. Creating a new design for the government portal platform

The National Audit Office thoroughly simplified its web content before the design process, which created a strong foundation for further work. The new design was developed in Figma based on the updated content. Using this design, the National Audit Office prepared the specifications for the development team to implement the website on the government portal platform.

In collaboration with the National Audit Office, we thought through the structure based on user needs

We divided the content into four clear main categories to support quick and clear navigation.

Updated the website frame

The government portal’s header and navigation are designed to accommodate websites with a lot of content and a complex information architecture. After simplification, the volume and structure of the National Audit Office’s content was significantly smaller than what the government portal header was designed for. Because of that we designed a visually lower and lighter header. The navigation logic remained the same as in the government portal, but we adapted the visual solution to a smaller content volume and a simpler structure.

The main output of the National Audit Office’s work is audit reports, which is why we designed a separate content page for audits and created filtering system to search for audits

Since there are hundreds of audits and their content is sizable, we developed unified and structured audit content pages for presenting summaries. The content pages structure information more effectively, making it easier to understand and accessible to a broader audience. At the request of the National Audit Office, we designed a filtering system suitable for the government portal, which makes finding interesting content among the large number of audits easier.

We made the content pages comprehensible and readable

We placed the simplified content created by the National Audit Office team into blocks on the government portal. We used different components to highlight important information and structure the text.

Designed new components

We made use of the extensive capabilities of the government portal and designed new components to make content even more flexible and user-friendly.

The new components

Mini Accordion

The mini accordion allows users to open a larger block of information directly beneath a specific paragraph of text. While the government portal already includes standard accordions and tabs, these function as separate components and do not allow additional information to be opened immediately at the end of a text section. The custom mini accordion created for the National Audit Office provides a good way to display additional information exactly where it is needed.

Horizontal Layout Component

The government portal’s horizontal layout component allows content to be divided into columns. However, its default logic assumes that each column contains only one complete component. We created a solution for the National Audit Office that allows multiple components to be placed sequentially within a single column. This makes it possible to combine different types of content more naturally. For example, inserting separate components between text sections without disrupting the page structure or readability.

Tooltips

The government portal does not offer a built-in option for using tooltips. For the National Audit Office website, we created custom tooltips that allow short explanations to appear directly next to specific terms. This keeps the main text clear, compact, and easy to read while still providing additional context when needed.

3. Content Implementation and Testing

• We uploaded most of the estonian web content into the administrative environment of the government portal and formalized some of the audits as examples. The National Audit Office then continued to enter the remaining audits itself. To ensure that the work was as efficient and convenient as possible, we guided the team through the practical work and prepared written guide materials.
• We were closely involved in testing throughout the entire development process. The work was delivered in stages, and with each new release we ensured alignment with the approved design and tested functionality to guarantee a complete and functional user experience.