ESB

Introduction

ESB (Electricity Supply Board) is a state-owned electricity utility. It operates across the electricity market, servicing Irish and UK customers from electricity generation to supply.

In 2008, we started our first project with ESB, managing a suite of HTML websites. Since then, our partnership has flourished, supporting the organisation in its transformation and acceleration of its commitment to digital.

Digital Partner

ESB operates across the generation, transmission, and supply markets, so our work focused on specific customer verticals and how digital can support and improve the customer experience. We work with the business teams to plan and develop the information architecture, UX design and content requirements in partnership with ESB IT services and external consultancy partners. Once we have a consensus, we create the frontend requirements, adhering to accessibility compliance, and then integrate and develop the content management aspects for each product.

We augment ESB’s teams by providing expertise across key areas, including technical architecture, specialist Sitefinity skills, and design system development and management. This partnership ensures the platform remains scalable, robust, and aligned with their evolving business needs. Our support enables ESB to deliver seamless digital experiences while maintaining the highest performance, usability, and innovation standards.

Global Platform

Sitefinity has been the primary CMS/DXP since 2014 and underpins the ESB Group, Electric Ireland, the residential and commercial supply business, and ESB Networks, which manage the transmission and distribution of electricity. Electric Ireland's new website was launched in 2024, first released and designed by Arekibo in 2015.

Design System

Since 2022, we have led the development of the ESB Group Design System, frontend, and Sitefinity library to support the delivery of new digital initiatives. This is a library of components, designed and developed with ESB's brand identity at it's heart, which can be reused across all ESB's properties. This ensures a coherent, standardised look and feel for the various enterprises under the ESB umbrella, creating a uniform aesthetic and breeds familiarity in its use. We also help each of ESB's business' by providing consultancy and support for content development, analytics, SEO, and cookie compliance. We also ensure knowledge transfer takes place with the integration of the new component library and design system, so that coherent structures and implementations are adhered to.

Accessibility First

 Chief among ESB's concerns, was to take an approach that led and placed accessibility to the fore. Through our design and development workshops, we ensured that accessibility was always the first conversation, and ensured that all components designed and built into the library considered accessibility requirements from the start. This also ensured that the components in the library had already undergone accessibility and usability testing, so that when reused by other properties, time required for testing was drastically reduced. Through multiple rounds of external testing by bodies such as InterAccess, the National Disability Association (NDA) Ireland and National Council for the Blind Ireland (NCBI), we were able to ensure that all the work completed for ESB met the standards and respected the approach required.