Agency · 2015
IPART
Re-designing an Australian Government platform that provides independent regulatory decisions and advice on public prices such as transport fares, energy bills, and various Government charges to protect the ongoing interests of consumers, taxpayers, and citizens of NSW.
Techniques
Heuristic Evaluation, Persona Creation, Sitemap, User Journeys, Wireframe, Prototyping & Usability Testing.
My Role
Lead the expert review of the current site. I'm responsible for delivering personas, sitemaps, research, sketches, and the development of an improved user journey.
Goal
To create and design a site that aids comprehension and learning of IPART's value and benefits.
Tools Used
Sketch, Axure, Keynotes
Project Duration
12 weeks
Devices
Desktop, Mobile
The Challenge
I was engaged by a creative agency to re-think the future platform for the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of New South Wales.
Previous Experience
Unpacking Problems
To validate whether there was a major problem, I dived into page flows, traffic, and page visits of the site. I realized:
- There was a low engagement during discovery and review selection. Users are not able to easily locate a specific review and were stuck on the first page.
- I uncovered existing usability issues and barriers to content discovery by reviewing the current IA.
- I also found multiple duplications of entry points and menus on the site (e.g. multiple navigation menus: x1 top menu, x2 menus on the right panel).
Also, the title on the current site didn't provide much context as to what a review is, why is there a review, how it impacts the public, why iPART conducts reviews, and who is involved?
Defining Success
Before jumping into design, it was important to define success and understand what variable can be changed in order to achieve the outcome we want.
WE BELIEVE THAT:
Users are not using the site because they don't understand what it does and how to use it,
SO BY:
Simplifying the site structure and reducing elements on the page, we can surface relevant information clearly,
WE WILL SEE:
An increase in comprehension and discoverability of the site, leading to more review submissions from the public.
Ideation
FOCUSING ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT
HMW:
Facilitate comprehension so users can learn about IPART and what reviews are?
Improve discoverability so users can easily find reviews?
Minimize effort and save time for power users who wants to make a submission for a review?
Simplicity & Speed
STARTING FROM THE END GOAL
Since browsing, understanding and finding reviews are the main user goals, they should be the main call out of the page.
For new users
To improve comprehension, I amplified the visual of each review as a hero image. As this is the first thing a user sees, and a 'learn more' CTA is presented for them to learn what each review is about.
This is followed by a paragraph describing what IPART does and how it helps the community.
For existing users
In order to optimise the experience and aid discoverability, I decided to surface a list of reviews upfront of the page hierarchy as they are main focus.
Each review have a visual and tag representation of their category and a large filter to provide quick access to them. This minimises effort, allowing power users to quickly find a specific review.
Reducing each task’s steps for frequent users helps them achieve their goal faster.
For each review card, I've included:
- A summary that describes what the review is about.
- A status indicator to show at which stages the review is at and how many days are left for submission.
- A quick link so frequent users can easily send their submission with a click.
The Result
In the 3 months after my involvement on the project, the team continued to evolve and polish the visual design, as well as finesse the finer functional details of the site. Although I was not part of this process, it was great to see most of my work brought to life.
Reflections...
Know your personas and cater your designs for them.
Anything not of immediate use is noise.
Get feedback early and iterate fast.