February 17th, 2025

We’re working with our disability community to launch a huge change to how you navigate Firstport.co.nz.

From the 20 Feb, it’ll be simpler than ever to find what you need on your first port of call for national disability information and advice.

Our new platform brings a simplified navigation designed by our disability community, fully responsive buttons to make clicking easier, more imagery to support quick subject identification, an updated equipment providers navigation and much more. Overall, a cleaner and more accessible site by our community, for our community.

Why does it matter Firstport switches platforms?

A platform switchover is when we move from an old website system to a new and improved one. Like building a new house and shifting all your stuff in from your old place. The new platform our Firstport website is hosted on is just as fast as our last site, but with added opportunities to grow. 

We’re looking forward to an exciting 2025 where we can be more responsive to ideas and innovations from our disability community.

We know how important it is to have an easy-to-use website. Our goal is to make less life admin for our disabled community. We want you to easily be able to find the information and advice you need, wherever you are on the disability journey. 

So that’s why when the platform shift was in the pipeline, we took the opportunity to reach out to our community and redesign Firstport with a fresh look. 

We heard Firstport had lots of information but the way it was presented felt a bit overwhelming. So rather than a ‘mega burger’ menu of 13 options, we worked with website agency Somar and a range of community representatives to land on five simple categories. 

Built with the Community, for the Community

This change was shaped by the voices (and instructions) of our community in the first 8 months of 2024.

We worked with experienced agency Somar and connected them with an amazing representative group of Whaikaha (disabled people). They came from all ages and stages and walks of life so we could get a really good representation of the recommendations of our community.

In fact the only thing they had in common was the general term ‘disabled’ and being wonderful insightful human beings. Our everlasting thanks to the care and consideration you all put into this project. 

Feeding into that feedback is information we’ve gathered from working with some remarkable Disability Advisory/Reference Groups across the motu. (While we’re not delivering the map navigation yet sorry Palmy North team, we promise it’s on our radar!) The new platform build began towards the end of last year, we’re excited to be so close to the finish line! 

While the Firstport vibe remains the same, the experience should be smoother! We invite you to explore the new Firstport and see the improvements for yourself. Let us know what you think – we’d love your feedback as we continue making Firstport the best it can be for our community.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Explore Firstport and discover easy to read, mana-enhancing information and advice from experts across Aotearoa New Zealand!

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