The challenge
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism needed a reliable technical partner who could balance urgent day-to-day needs with strategic improvements to their digital presence. As their digital strategy evolved, they wanted to ensure their website could support ambitious storytelling whilst making data-driven decisions about future improvements.
Most critically, they needed to maintain their high standards of investigative journalism without being slowed down by technical limitations.
Our approach
We began with a successful transition project covering newsletter migration to Beehiiv, Poool integrations, and an SEO audit. This work led to a Tech Canopy Support agreement, our ongoing partnership model designed for organisations that need consistent, reliable technical support.
Through regular calls with their team, we developed a deep understanding of their editorial priorities and upcoming needs, allowing us to be proactive rather than purely reactive.
What we delivered in their first 14 Tech Canopy days
Improvements to hosting infrastructure
We migrated TBIJ’s hosting to our trusted partner and implemented performance optimisations that delivered immediate impact. Global content delivery now serves pages instantly to visitors in 330 cities worldwide. Intelligent image handling automatically selects the optimal image size based on each visitor’s device, whilst we streamlined the codebase by removing unnecessary elements to speed up page loads.
This wasn’t a one-time fix. We continually monitor and work with the TBIJ team to adjust server capacity as needed, ensuring the site remains fast and reliable.
Embedding a user-led approach to improvements
We embedded a user-centred approach throughout our work with TBIJ, ensuring that every decision was informed by real visitor needs and fully tested assumptions. Could visitors find what they were looking for? Did the existing categories make sense? The insights from this research and additional A/B testing is continuing to inform and ground strategic design decisions in actual user behaviour.
As well as user-led research we have collaborated to introduce design elements such as colour-managed H2 headings, quote blocks, and image frames, giving editors consistent visual control whilst ensuring the site continues to meet accessibility standards.
Rapid and flexible support
With all of our Tech Canopy partners we available and flexible to meet urgent needs. In the case of TBIJ this has included provisioning hosting for time-sensitive story features, and fixing bugs as they emerge. Where possible, we make sure that the response to a single challenge is developed in a way that can be replicated in the future.
When TBIJ commissioned a scrollable interactive map for a major investigation, we needed to move quickly. We created a full-page embedding system that hosts interactive content directly within story pages, maintains the look and feel of the main site, and keeps readers engaged without forcing them to external links. We coordinated closely with the team to design a short-term solution that would allow rapid deployment, whilst also building a longer-term approach that would make future interactive features easier to implement.
The impact of this initial support period
The Tech Canopy model gave TBIJ consistent availability at a predictable cost, combined with strategic thinking about their long-term needs.
By working at a sustainable pace of one day per week, we had time to understand their editorial mission deeply, spot opportunities for improvement, and build solutions that would serve them as our relationship developed.
This is support that thinks ahead, not just responding to requests, but anticipating needs and suggesting improvements that align with their mission of delivering impactful investigative journalism alongside the maintenance of their Tech Stack.
Tech Stack
Craft CMS
UX Army
Figma
