Problem
The project team at Dept of Education, South Australia engaged us to explore the solution for citizens (parents and caregivers of children aged 0-5) from South Australia addressing their unique needs, manage expectation of Early Years of the children connecting through various services.
Team of 4: GM, Lead UXer (myself) and two design members. The team also worked on other projects.
Our Actions
3 month extensive mixed research (qual and quant)
Service design thinking methods
100 page recommedations report, onsite user testing
Outcome
Based on the recommendations report, the team implemented many innovative features winning 2024 SA/NT AIIA iAwards, Merit in the Government and Public Sector category.
Key points
Localisation to South Australian caregivers and supporting agencies
Inclusion and diversity for caregivers of other background
Support system for Indegenious people
Key points
'Instagram' like UI interaction simple, fast, intuitive
Less text, more video format or text to voice conversion
Ability to bookmark, like, comment and share short stories
Key points
Readable and soothing fonts
Real images over other formats
Brand colors fun, relaxed, lighter pallete
Key points
Identified key stages in customer journey with features priortised with MoSCow (Must, Should, Could)
Project teams developed clarity and understanding of the agencies involved and their role in customer journey
Exposed challenges across Policy groups, Funding and Governance
Supporting agencies like CaFHs, Bluebooks, Private doctors and hospitals, Indigenous communities
Key points
Downloadable App - no data saving
Multiple Child profile creation 0-5years
Tracking growth factors and visualisation
Personalised stories and other recommedations
Connectivitiy to local communities, agencies and emergency services
Identified key personas and their journey: Single parents, Men as caregivers, Adoptions, Foster, Immigrant parents, Caregivers (Nanny, Grandparents, etc), Babies who are born premature, etc
Challenges across policy makers, governance, funding and how that may impact
App to be more inclusive busting traditional thinking
Validated the hypothesis with significant satifaction for parents and caregivers
Helped priortised features identified in the research
In Retrospect
Innovation was possible because the team went out of their way to understand diverse groups of customers and challenges, outdated parenting conventions which was missing in other competitive Apps.