Nimbus Disabilility.

The Access Card provides a recognised way for disabled people to communicate the reasonable adjustments and accessibility requirements they may need at venues and events. Behind that experience sits a substantial technology ecosystem responsible for everything from applications and payments to assessments, card administration, and public-facing services.

Some elements of that technology have evolved over almost 20 years.

For Nimbus Disability, the challenge wasn't simply finding developers capable of working with an established PHP codebase. It was finding a technology partner that could understand how a complex, interconnected platform supported the organisation, its team, and ultimately Access Card holders.

The ecosystem consists of four interconnected applications, with data and business processes shared between them. Changes to one part of the platform can have consequences elsewhere, while years of development have created important business rules and dependencies that aren't always captured in documentation.

Much of that knowledge was held by a small development team managing both front-end and back-end technology across consumer-facing products and internal business systems.

That made collaboration fundamental to a successful handover.

Rather than treating the existing platform as something to replace, our first priority was to understand why it worked the way it did, what knowledge needed to be preserved, and where Arch could begin adding value safely.

Key challenges included:

• Transferring years of technical and operational knowledge without disrupting ongoing services.
• Understanding dependencies across four interconnected applications.
• Working alongside Nimbus Disability's existing developers to uncover undocumented business logic.
• Creating a reliable development environment for investigation and testing.
• Triaging an existing backlog to identify business-critical priorities.
• Balancing immediate development requirements with the long-term evolution of the platform.
• Establishing a collaborative delivery process that gave both teams visibility over priorities and progress.

We began the partnership with a focused two-week discovery and knowledge transfer period, working directly alongside Nimbus Disability's developers to understand both the technology and the thinking behind it.

Importantly, that process didn't begin with code.

We first immersed ourselves in Nimbus Disability's brand, values, services, and the role technology plays in delivering the Access Card. Understanding the organisation and its users gave our developers the context needed to make better technical decisions later.

From there, our teams worked side by side to explore the existing codebase, business processes, dependencies, and development history. Instead of asking only how individual components worked, we focused on why they had been built that way and what consequences changes could have elsewhere in the ecosystem.

Arch adopted the codebase and established an internal local development environment, giving our team a consistent foundation for investigation and testing. In parallel, we reviewed and triaged the existing development backlog with Nimbus Disability, identifying the work that was most important to the organisation and agreeing clear acceptance criteria before development began.

That collaborative approach allowed us to move from discovery into active development quickly, while maintaining the care required when working with long-established, business-critical systems.

Crucially, we also reached an important technical decision together: not to rebuild for the sake of rebuilding.

With a platform carrying years of business logic and interconnected dependencies, replacing the entire stack would introduce unnecessary risk. Instead, Arch and Nimbus Disability agreed on an incremental approach that protects existing knowledge while steadily improving the platform.

New development is being approached with reusability in mind, allowing the work completed today to continue delivering value if elements of the technology are modernised or rebuilt in the future.

Collaboration continues beyond the initial handover. Shared planning, agreed priorities, clear acceptance criteria, and focused touchpoints between both teams ensure development remains closely aligned with what Nimbus Disability needs from the platform.

Our partnership with Nimbus Disability goes beyond supporting its existing technology. We're also working together to redesign its website, creating a digital presence that better reflects Nimbus's position as a leader in accessibility and innovation.

The new site will make it easier for organisations to understand Nimbus's services, from training and consultancy to the Access Card and NOS, with clearer journeys tailored around different sectors and audiences.

Accessibility is embedded from the outset, with a mobile-first experience targeting WCAG 2.2 AA standards. A flexible, component-based CMS will also give the Nimbus team greater control over content while maintaining consistency and accessibility.

Alongside a considered SEO migration and improved analytics, the result will be a scalable platform designed to support Nimbus's growth and evolve alongside its services and technology.