Case Study: Redtag.ca - Digital Migration & Modernization
Role
Front End Developer at Digital On Six, 2022 - 2026
Technologies
AEM Cloud Migration, React, Bootstrap
The challenge
Having committed to a more scalable and future-ready enterprise marketing platform, the redtag.ca team partnered with Digital On Six to migrate their existing website to AEM Cloud. The migration provided an opportunity to modernize the company's consumer-facing web presence, which was being impacted by slow load times, an outdated layout, cumbersome authoring processes, and inconsistent branding across touchpoints.
Improving SEO, accessibility, scalability, and mobile responsiveness were among the primary goals for the revamped experience, while maintaining parity with the existing analytics implementation to ensure continuity throughout the transition.
My role
Partnered with fellow developers, designers, and QA throughout the content migration and development of custom components, with a focus on improving the accessibility, responsiveness, and maintainability of the existing experience. I helped establish a mobile-first structure with more semantic markup across components while keeping flexibility for different content and layout requirements top of mind.
Building the new experience
The migration to AEM Cloud provided an opportunity to address longstanding issues while establishing a stronger foundation for the continued evolution of the redtag.ca website. Key outcomes from the project included:
- 14K+ pages optimized for SEO
- 30% improvement in accessibility scores
- 25+ reusable components and templates developed for content authors
Because the existing website was operational and the project involved both migrating and modernizing a primary customer touchpoint for a leading online travel agency, we took a gradual approach to the transformation. Once the existing content had been migrated into AEM Cloud, we aligned with stakeholders on a plan to begin modernization with the site's main navigation pages before progressively working deeper into the site hierarchy.
This approach allowed us to make more informed decisions as our understanding of the existing experience developed, rather than attempting to redesign and modernize the entire site simultaneously. By combining that knowledge with our team's experience, we were able to strike a balance between introducing a more robust and maintainable solution and minimizing disruption to the existing customer experience.
The progressive approach also provided an opportunity to identify areas where existing patterns could be simplified or consolidated, contributing to a simplified visual content hierarchy while establishing reusable components and templates that gave content authors greater flexibility.
Outcome
Through the combination of a carefully executed content migration and the progressive modernization of the site's content structure and component architecture, the redtag.ca migration to AEM Cloud established a stronger foundation for the continued evolution of the digital experience.
The project addressed key concerns around SEO, accessibility, scalability, and mobile responsiveness while preserving continuity with the existing analytics implementation. For content authors, the introduction of reusable components and a more streamlined authoring experience provided greater flexibility and efficiency. From a customer perspective, the resulting experience provided a cleaner, more responsive, and easier-to-navigate foundation for discovering and booking travel through redtag.ca.
View more work