Re-imagining the starting school journey for parents & caregivers
In Summary
Designed and researched features for a digital co-pilot for parents to navigate school enrolment process, with ease and efficiency.
The Client
NSW Department of Customer Service
My Responsibilities
UX/UI Design
UX Research
Prototyping
Wireframing
The Duration
5 months
Final Designs
Let’s take a look at the final result, before we dive into the case study
As a result of our work, we were able to design and prototype key features that would empower parents to seamlessly navigate the starting school journey. These features mitigate key challenges parents face from initial research to enrolment and deliver a more seamless and impactful user experience. You can see our school finder tool, and our enrolment timeline, now live in action.
Project Context
The vision is to become the world’s most customer centric government by 2030
To work towards this vision, the Department of Customer Services, created the “Life Journeys Program”, a range of government and non-government services that customers may come into contact with, as part of a life journey event. Some examples of life journeys include: starting a family, schooling, navigating jobs and career and retirement, amongst many others.
Customers are often required to navigate multiple agencies, repeatedly provide personal information and keep their own ‘to do’ lists of the steps when engaging with government. This is amplified during key life events where customers may need to complete a range of activities and source information from multiple channels simultaneously.
To help customers in the process of interacting and engaging with government bodies and agencies, the Department of Customer Service created Life Administrator. Life Administrator is a digital co-pilot that is designed to help customers find and access government services. Life Administrator revolutionises the customer experience by being able to provide a personalised and proactive experience for NSW customers as they interact with government agencies when navigating through their individual life journeys. This tool is designed to reduce administrative burden on customers seeking to find government information and support.
Project Overview
Starting school is a big milestone for children and their families
Enrolling a child in school marks the beginning of a child’s life-long educational journey and can be a pivotal chapter in both the child and parent’s life. However, it can also be a complex and stressful transition for many families.
Recognising the significance of starting school as a critical life journey, the NSW Department of Customer Service, in collaboration with their internal Life Journey teams and the NSW Department of Education, chose this as the initial focus area for the Life Administrator pilot.
As a Product Designer within the Life Administrator team, I had a very broad range of responsibilities. I conducted in-depth user research about the starting school journey and also designed and delivered wireframes and prototypes of solutions and features that aimed to alleviate pain points and challenges that parents experienced throughout the starting school journey.
The Problem Space
The journey to start and enrol in school, is a complex and fragmented process
The Approach
Design thinking enabled us to be creative, and put our customer at the core
The school enrolment process in NSW is complex and daunting, starting well before the actual enrolment. Parents must navigate extensive research on school options within their catchment area, decide between public and private sectors, and consider various factors crucial to choosing the right school for their child.
The administrative burden is significant; the current paper-based enrolment form alone is 16 pages, adding to the stress. Moreover, the lack of a centralised source for critical information and deadlines further complicates the process. This fragmented system is particularly challenging for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, who may face additional barriers in navigating these complexities.
Design Process
The priority was to gain a deep understanding and generate a broad range of solutions for the pilot of Life Administrator
Empathy Phase
To be able to empathise with our customer, we first needed to build a comprehensive understanding
During the research phase, our team conducted both secondary and primary research to gain a comprehensive understanding of the starting school journey. Our secondary research was a critical part of our empathising and understanding stage as it allowed us to gain a very in-depth and rich understanding of the journey.
We used insights gained during our desk research to help us build questions for our interviews and themes of discussion that we covered during our focus group sessions. Having a deeper understanding of the topic, enabled myself and my fellow designers to better engage with our research participants and to fully empathise with their lived experiences.
Define Phase
To define our core problem, we needed to analyse research results and then synthesise them into key insights and themes
Our research endeavours provided us with a wealth of qualitative data and insights. We were also fortunate enough to have further research contributions from our internal early childhood teams. In this phase, we undertook two pivotal stages: analysis and synthesis.
Collaborating with my colleague, we meticulously analysed transcripts and focus group data, employing a thematic analysis to extract key insights and quotes. These findings were thoughtfully cataloged on our team Miro board. Subsequently, we embarked on synthesis, utilising affinity diagramming to discern emerging patterns and themes.
Our prioritisation process was pragmatic, considering both the frequency and impact of themes on the customer journey. Armed with these insights, we developed archetypes of parents and caregivers, accompanied by empathy maps that provided nuanced insights into their experiences and pain points."
Through analysis and synthesis and analysis, we were able to uncover key themes that led us to our problem statement.
Analysing and synthesising our research data, led to the creation of four principles that guided our design efforts
Ideate Phase
During our ideation phase, we generated over 30 different ideas, solutions and various flows
Before starting our brainstorming sessions, I set the stage with current and future state visual, archetype cards, and an empathy map to focus our team on the user challenges and to help us empathise and remember who we’re designing and problem solving for.
I led the ideation phase with three key methods to maximise idea generation. Initially, we conducted traditional brainstorming sessions, where each team member had three minutes to generate ideas, followed by four minutes to add to teammates' ideas. We also explored new perspectives with the "worst idea possible" and "ideal journey" methods. Employing different methods of brainstorming, allowed us to think more creatively and push ourselves, contrasting great customer experiences that would align to an ideal future state versus bad experiences that we’d like to avoid.
Prototype Phase
In this phase, we prototyped prioritised ideas, creating user flows and prototypes ranging from low to high fidelity
During the prototype phase, we transformed our prioritised concepts into tangible representations using Figma. These prototypes ranged from low to high fidelity, with some being clickable prototypes for interactive exploration. We conducted regular design playback sessions with the team to gather feedback and iterate on the designs. Promising concepts that received positive reception were further developed into higher fidelity prototypes in preparation for testing.
Testing Phase
Feedback during the testing phase, allowed us to continuously improve our product, leading us to get buy in for three key features
Throughout our testing phase, we engaged our internal product and design teams to evaluate our prototypes through detailed feedback sessions.
As a result of our testing and prototyping efforts, we refined and received buy in for three critical features:
1. A school finder tool that helps parents find schools within their catchment region, based off of their address.
2. A before and after school care provider tool, that assists parents in finding a provider based off the school they choose to enrol their child
3. A timeline feature to guide parents through the school enrolment process, based on their child’s birthdate.
Project Results
Our overall project resuts and impact
Though I transitioned from the project prior to the development phase, I received positive updates on the progress and impact of our designs on the starting school journey. Our collective efforts successfully addressed key challenges parents face during school selection and enrolment process.
The initial versions of our "School Finder" and "Before and After School Finder" tools, along with the "Enrolment Timeline" feature, have been developed and are already aiding parents by simplifying their decision-making process. Additional features are set to launch soon but remain confidential until their release.
Although I could not directly measure the impact of our solutions, had I continued on the project, I would have focused on the following metrics to gauge success:
Project Final Screens
