Background
The Health Minister, Ministry of Health and the Board of Health had issued a request for The NSW Health Department’s client facing website to be redesigned as it lacked key features and experienced poor user engagement. The key objective was to allow users to find useful information and resources efficiently and to publish the Health Department’s news and publications.
Methodology
An initial meeting was conducted with the Branch Managers and Senior Policy Officers to discuss requirements and content to be published on the website. The aim of this initial meeting was to draft a sitemap which would be used as a foundation and trigger the initial wireframe process. Weekly meetings with the stakeholders were held for the duration of the project to provide not only a detailed progress report but more importantly, provide suggestions and examples of user experience improvements which would be implemented in the final design. This was achieved via a series of visual infographics, reports and user interviews.
Process
Within the abovementioned weekly progress meetings, Branch Managers were asked to sign-off and approve any relevant material. This was due to the delay in approving each stage as it was difficult to receive feedback from each Branch Manager including the Programme Manager. Therefore these progress meetings were also used as a means to receive written approval. This allowed us to save valuable time.
Due to the Programme Manager and Branch Manager’s busy schedules, the presentation meetings needed to be conducted efficiently and at exactly the right time to ensure each stakeholder was present and received clear instruction and updates. For each approval and each trigger, we require complete understanding and buy-in from each stakeholder and a unanimous decision needed to be reached before progressing to the next stage.
Evidence
The department had existing feedback and data it had received from public users and partners. The data suggested improvement areas especially in relation to publications, languages and emergency information. We ensured this data was taken seriously and strongly considered when designing the website and its sitemap structure.
Combined with our own data and UX analysis, we were then able to present the evidence to the client and justify the design changes we had proposed. The key features were highlighted during the first wireframe presentation meeting.
Evaluation
The final design was delivered as initially agreed and provides a platform for the NSW Government to publish key information relating to health issues and department initiatives and projects.
A key learning was to establish realistic milestones considering the stakeholders were time poor and it was difficult to get everyone in the same room at the same time. The milestones needed to be scheduled and agreed to at the initial meeting to ensure timely delivery of each module.