Australian Financial Security Authority

Overview

The Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) is an executive agency in the Treasury portfolio, responsible for maintaining confidence in Australia's personal insolvency and personal property securities systems.
AFSA engaged Morpht to deliver meaningful digital and accessibility improvements across its 2 websites.

afsa.gov.au ppsr.gov.au

Award-winning websites

Morpht and AFSA's collaboration resulted in 2 GovCMS Community Awards in 2025:

Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA)

Awarded the Innovation Award for creative use of modern technology and thoughtful design enhancements.

Personal Property and Securities Register (PPSR)

Awarded the Connecting with Community Award for supporting community participation and offering transparent, accessible services.

AFSA website: The challenge

The AFSA website lacked a robust foundation. This meant we had to target structural improvements to introduce new foundational components without disrupting existing content or functionality. The information architecture also needed revisiting, as the site structure did not adequately support user needs. This required close collaboration with the AFSA team to ensure the new site structure met those needs.

The solution

Morpht delivered a redesigned mega menu that now serves as the main navigation of the AFSA website. In collaboration with AFSA, Morpht rolled out new colour palettes and components, including CTAs, callout features, and a timeline. AFSA can now create different page layouts, using colour palettes in background modifiers and promote content using these components. The improvements to the site search and mega menu have also improved the way users find information relevant to their needs.

AFSA website screenshots on hand held devices

IA discovery

Morpht conducted an information architecture (IA) discovery with the AFSA team to design a new mega menu that now serves as the main navigation of the site. The IA was carefully planned to make navigation intuitive and logical, helping users find relevant content with ease.

AFSA mega menu being displayed on a Macbook

Cohesive look and feel

Morpht consolidated the number of content blocks on the site and introduced colour palettes, which allowed for consistency across pages and components, reinforcing AFSA’s brand identity and creating a cohesive user experience. Morpht worked with AFSA to carefully select colours that support readability, visual hierarchy, and contrast, helping users scan content more easily and meeting WCAG accessibility requirements.

Refreshed homepage

A key feature of the AFSA website improvements was to implement a new homepage to better reflect user needs by shifting the focus from an organisation-centric layout to a user-centred experience. The updated homepage prioritises what users are looking for, surfacing key tasks, information, and resources more intuitively. This improved clarity helps users reach relevant content faster, resulting in a more effective and purposeful entry point to the site.

The outcome

The updated AFSA website delivers a more robust, user-focused and accessible digital experience. Strengthened foundations, a consistent colour palette, updated navigation, improved search and a redesigned homepage now work together to guide users more intuitively to the information and resources they need. The new scalable design and content patterns support long-term maintainability. The updated site can be confidently and efficiently used to engage with AFSA's services and information.

PPSR website: The challenge

The PPSR website lacked a strong technical foundation, which affected performance and long-term maintainability. Targeted optimisation was required, including refactoring legacy implementations, modernising key functionality, and removing redundant JavaScript to reduce frontend overhead. Accessibility and content clarity also required attention. Several components and interactive features did not meet current accessibility expectations and required remediation to align with WCAG standards.

The solution

Morpht delivered targeted performance improvements through enhanced load times, code quality, and scalability, while ensuring that existing content and critical functionality remained stable and unaffected. We also provided both remediation and strategic guidance to ensure alignment with recognised accessibility standards. This work not only addressed compliance risks but also improved overall usability and inclusivity across the platform.

Performance improvements

Performance uplift was an important requirement. The website exhibited slow load times and inefficient frontend delivery, driven by legacy implementations and unnecessary client-side assets. We refactored key areas of the site, removing unused JavaScript, improving media delivery, and ensuring functionality was implemented in a more efficient and maintainable manner. These enhancements reduced load times and delivered a more responsive user experience.

Accessibility remediations

AFSA used web governance tools to run a comprehensive accessibility audit on the PPSR website, identifying a range of issues for Morpht to address. Morpht validated and implemented fixes, bringing the site to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA compliance. The fixes included correcting semantic HTML, improving form labelling, resolving colour contrast deficiencies, and strengthening keyboard navigation and focus states. In December 2023, Vision Australia formally recognised this achievement by issuing a Statement of Accessibility.

Improved glossary

Morpht enhanced the glossary tooltips that automatically surface definitions for key terms on the PPSR website. This ensured consistent terminology, improved user understanding through in-context explanations, and reduced manual effort for content authors while remaining easy to maintain.