Need to Know
- Northern worked with IIROC on a multi-year, three-phase project.
- Northern led the development of a bilingual, AODA-compliant Drupal digital experience built on Acquia Site Studio with custom tokens.
- The IIROC public website and its associated properties, including ePublications, AdvisorReport, and IIROC Services, are one of IIROC’s primary communication channels serving diverse stakeholder groups in all official languages.
Client
The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) is one of Canada’s self‑regulatory organizations, which oversees all investment dealers and trading activity on Canada’s debt and equity marketplaces.
Brief
IIROC sought to transform its primary digital experience to improve search functionality—making it easier for its diverse stakeholder audience to source relevant information while upholding accessibility standards.
Challenge
IIROC’s legacy web experience was challenging to navigate with inadequate search functions, hindering IIROC-regulated firms and their employees, retail and institutional investors, and marketplaces from seamlessly accessing information.
The legacy experience also hosted many PDF documents, which did not meet provincial legislation requirements in Ontario for accessibility standards. Since a large portion of the content on the site needed to match original legal documents as closely as possible, the client had particular formatting needs.
Strategy
In the second phase, Northern partnered with IIROC to redevelop its main website, employing the Plain Language Rulebook template, ensuring effective communication across site visitors.
Northern developed a bilingual, AODA-compliant Drupal digital experience for IIROC, built on Acquia Site Studio with custom tokens. The site required numerous integrations with internal business systems, including Single Sign-On integrated with an Active Directory and providing user roles aligned with Active Directory groups.
With the launch of the rebuilt site, the average user’s understanding of lIROC's role has increased. The new Drupal digital experience enhances IIROC’s image and reputation with all stakeholders by providing timely and relevant information in modern, easily consumable formats for all users.
The Northern team continues working with IIROC on new initiatives to support and maintain its digital experience.