International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network
In early 2017, PreviousNext were engaged by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) for the redevelopment of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN) website. ICPEN is a membership organisation consisting of consumer protection law enforcement authorities from over 60 countries, encouraging global cooperation aimed at combating fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair trading practices that affect consumers around the world.
Challenge
As ICPEN essentially deals with cross border scams, fraud, anti-consumer behaviour etc, the primary consideration with the development of a new website was to ensure that the ACCC and ICPEN have a modern web platform, with the enhanced functionality required to better support both consumer and agency members of the site. From a design and UX perspective, content needed to be presented in a more visually appealing, responsive and accessible way. Data also needed to be migrated from a legacy system to the Drupal platform, which involved pulling across all member accounts from the former site.
Solution
PreviousNext was engaged for both the design and development phases, delivering a website that functions to serve two distinct audiences; members and consumers. Consumers have access to a simple, user-friendly public facing informational site that provides essential information including how to avoid scams and shop safely online, tips on where to look for help and how to lodge a complaint in cross-border disputes. To cater for members, the new platform includes a login portal from which they can conveniently share resources, information, post news and view events etc. PreviousNext’s approach to this project provided the ACCC with an efficient and cost effective method of redeveloping the ICPEN platform, making it easier to manage and update by the internal team and automating a lot of tasks that were previously manual, such as account registration and approval workflows.
Outcome
The new, responsive ICPEN site provides a collaborative forum for developing and maintaining regular contact between consumer protection agencies, with a global reach that allows it to identify, target and respond to cross-border issues faced by consumers participating in today’s digital economy. Our relationship with the ACCC continues as we make ongoing enhancements to the ICPEN site and support both the platform and hosting infrastructure.