Client: NSW Government, Department Family and Community Services
Date: 2018
Who is FACS?
Family and Community Services (FACS) is the NSW state government cluster responsible for protecting children and young people from risk of significant harm.
As part of the Digital Consolidation Program, the public site was the fourth and final website to be relaunched.
Most people will use the site on a mobile device, and it'll probably have a broken screen. This can influence their experience.
Our team
My role was Senior UI Designer. I wrangled branding, realised design principles/rationales, and created design assets which form a design system for the future.
The project team consisted of 3 user-experience consultants (lead, researcher and junior), 1 Developer, 3 Project Managers and over 10 Content Producers.
The project ran from mid 2017 to mid 2018.
An accessible digital service
The site is designed to be simple, clear and fast.
The Digital Service Standard developed by the Digital Transformation Agency was adopted (on top of a Double Diamond project approach) and ensures the site is a user-centered, data-driven online service, designed in an agile environment.
Our team prototyped rapidly on paper, design and code, and tested regularly internally and with users.
We failed often. Every element found a place and has a purpose. We simplified.
Built from the ground up, based on best practice, industry (and "competitor" site) standards and user research and testing
The public website is strongly informed by user research.
A very wide range of people use the public website: 16 unique personas over 4 categories of services were identified. Most don't want to use the website and are very mistrustful of FACS.
Most people using the website have a low level of computer literacy, use a lot of slang, and English may not be their preferred language.
Over 60% - and growing - will visit the website on a mobile phone. Many will visit under distressing personal circumstances.
People may not identify with words that many of us take for granted. For example, if someone regularly sleeps on friends' couches, they may not consider themselves homeless. So our team pushed for concepts that people would identify with; "I need a place to sleep", not "homelessness".
The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think
When a 'strong ability to use computers' is measured by 'copying and pasting a file between directories', the reality is that most people will not use the FACS website like you or I.
They will probably not be using the site on a glossy iMac.
They will probably not know how to filter search results...
...but they will quadruple-click buttons, repeatedly, while assuring us they "know computers".
“It’s all about family for our mob… I think i’d feel more comfortable if I could speak to an Aboriginal person at the Helpline or if I knew that the parent I reported could speak to an Aboriginal caseworker”
42 F, Aboriginal woman from Bourke
“I don’t have family here, so I need all the support I can get”
28 F, experiencing violence at home
Clockwise from top: Getting a sense of how styles translate to mobile, wireframes of related elements, heatmap tests, Vision Australia glasses to replicate vision difficulties.
A mobile-first approach was taken to design.
I kept in mind a scenario of a distressed woman, walking down the street in a dusty country town, looking at her cracked mobile, trying to find some information as quickly as possible.
Tools to help test the site included pin-hole glasses supplied by Vision Australia, JAWS screen reader, WAVE Accessibility toolbar, CrazyEgg heatmap tracking and Stark colour plugin for Sketch.
Regular user testing sessions ran up until launch.
Simplified Design Rationale
Look and feel: Neutral, minimal, flat, consistent, contrasty and predictable
Structure: Single-column, left-aligned, few templates
Colour: Sparing, vibrant, accessible
Typography: Open Sans, 75-character paragraph width, large and bold typefaces
Images: Minimal use of images. Displayed depending on whether user is in a branding, transactional or research part of the site.
In the meantime, check out the previous project, the FACS Intranet.