Uniting seven Digital NSW branches under a new digital front door

The redesign of the Digital NSW website homepage helped lower bounce rates while providing the seven branches an equal piece of the pie.

By Andrei Vidaicu
October 13, 2024

Problem

Through continuous feedback from our customers, several deficiencies have been identified on the Digital NSW website. Users struggle to find information, face unclear process guidance, lack structured pathways, and encounter complex content. Meanwhile, stakeholders desire a more equitable piece of the pie.

“I don’t know anything about this organization or what they do also I’m extremely annoyed that I can’t locate a phone number to speak with someone.”
“It's not clear how we can contact anyone about this site. It doesn't really make me feel valued.”
"When will there be a link to the actual strategy? Be good to see it”

- Submissions from the 'Feedback Assist' widget

I've had the opportunity to be part of a hard working team, my role is to lead the design activities, transforming any challenges into opportunities.

This project specifically focuses on the homepage of the website, as well as touching on navigation elements such as the global search and main navigation.

Making it work for public servants

The Digital NSW website serves government departments and public servants who visit the site to find information relevant to their work.

Process

To gain a better understanding of our user pain points and behaviors, I implemented a mixed methods research approach combining qualitative and quantitative data. This involved conducting in-depth stakeholder interviews with key personnel across different departments, analyzing user feedback through our website's feedback assist widget, and examining behavioral patterns through Google Analytics data.

The stakeholder interviews provided valuable insights into organizational goals and user needs from an internal perspective. The feedback widget responses captured our users pain points in their own words, while Google Analytics data revealed quantitative patterns in user behavior, navigation paths, and content engagement.

I grouped the facts and findings in a repository to find patterns which helped me identify the main problems that kept showing up in all the different data sources. These findings helped us prioritize design requirements and gave the team clearer direction on the problems we needed to solve.

Below were the main insights from the findings gathered.

Caption: The key insights that helped us define the design requirements and objectives. The before and after -

Caption: (L) Current Digital NSW homepage, (R) Redesign

A more structured way of finding information on the Digital NSW website

The high-fidelity prototype (currently undergoing testing prior to launch)

Reflection

It's important to note that we didn't set out to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we focused on making small, incremental improvements to the current design, utilizing existing components available in the CMS.

Moving forward, we plan to continue gathering user feedback on these changes and make further refinements as needed.

Next case study: Standardising user consent through a design system component