Huntingfield
How we built a government real estate website in just 8 weeks from design to go live. www.huntingfieldtas.com.au
Client:
Homes Tasmania
Partners
Squiz Australia
Platform
Squiz DXP, CMS & UltraCX
Duration
8 week project
10 week engagement
The challenge and context
Huntingfield is a flagship land release project. And a key site to be rezoned under enabling legislation and the largest mixed-tenure subdivision developed by Homes Tasmania that would deliver around 460 lots into a housing market facing unprecedented affordability and supply constraints.
The delivery of housing supply including land release projects, have received significant public and political interest.
Homes Tasmania intended to take a different approach to the Huntingfield land release, selling land directly to customers for the first time so a different approach to marketing land sales was called for. Additionally, Homes Tasmania suspected that its key role as social housing there may be limited community awareness of its role as land developer.
Homes Tasmania needed a modern, accessible website that could be delivered fast, without compromising on clarity, compliance, or content flexibility delivering a strong commercial focus with a real estate look and feel and site-based URL.
The site also needed to clearly explain options for land, house and land packages, home ownership support, local attractions, and the master plan, with task-based navigation throughout.
In the months leading up to the scheduled date of sales release, Homes Tasmania experienced the loss of key personnel reducing internal capacity to manage the website development in-house with the existing vendor unable to resource the website within the required timeframe.
Built with
UltraCX - The Smarter, Faster Way to Build Government Websites
Our Approach
FrontStage proposed a reusable, low-risk delivery model using UltraCX, our government-ready theme built for Squiz DXP, to rapidly implement the required page types and layouts while staying aligned to Homes Tasmania’s technical specification and brand direction.
This project was delivered using Squiz DXP Component Service technology, where we leveraged 30 new components from the scalable UltraCX foundation for future government sites.
Design, Build, Launch
Homes Tasmania had developed the site layout and copy prior to project commencement.
The UI was designed in Figma over a two-week sprint, based on Homes Tasmania’s layered Photoshop mockups and detailed layout requirements.
Visually, the site balances warmth and confidence with a clean, commercial aesthetic:
- A hero video banner on the homepage, designed for accessibility (including pause controls and reduced motion behaviour).
- A clear six-area card layout to help users self-navigate quickly, with consistent hover and focus states.
- A structured page hierarchy: Homepage, Landing pages, and Child pages, enabling repeatable layouts as new stages and releases are added.
- Design refinements captured through review and UAT, including consistent card geometry, footer treatment, and clear interactive patterns.
Experience and functionality delivered
Key custom layouts were delivered exactly where users need them most:
- Land Availability Table with filters, designed for frequent updates and operational simplicity.
- House and Land Packages presented as scannable cards with filtering and detail pages for each design.
- Funnelback search integrated site-wide, including a dedicated results experience.
- Core compliance built in, targeting WCAG standards.
Content Loaded Fast
A major success factor for Huntingfield was how quickly the site could be populated and kept up to date once the foundation was in place.
FrontStage provided two days of focused content support to get Homes Tasmania set up with the right patterns, templates, and publishing confidence. From there, the Homes Tasmania team independently uploaded the remainder of the content at pace, including the full set of 50 house listings in just a few days.
Each listing included rich, high-value media, with 3D facade renders, elevation imagery, and floorplans added cleanly and consistently, thanks to the structured content model and repeatable page layouts. This ensured the listings presented professionally and remained easy to maintain as availability and package details evolved.
SEO and Content Guidelines
To support long-term performance, FrontStage also supplied a best practice guide for image sizing and SEO, helping ensure assets are optimised for speed, accessibility, and discoverability. This sets the website up for strong ongoing visibility in search, while keeping day-to-day publishing efficient for the client team.
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