MyGov Modernisation
…stay with me people


2018
Beta and Live

Service Design Lead

What is mygov?

MyGov is a govt portal that people have to use to access a range of govt services - from Tax Return to NDIS plans to welfare payments. The exact number of users is unknown but it's thought to be between 5-10 million users.

The background

In mid 2016 DTA was handed responsibility for the User Experience & the Policy for mygov, and DHS given technology & delivery responsibilities. The Modernising MyGov partnership was born. I joined as Research Lead at the commencement of the Beta stage.

The problem

mygov is a legacy product with few enhancements since it's launch in 2013. The user experience is clunky and confusing. The platform has received much criticism for its 'lock outs' - when users try too many times with incorrect sign in details and are forced to create a second/third mygov account.

Not to mention - not responsive, filled with confusing jargon, difficult to link services.

For the Beta-live stage, several tranches of focus were identified - UX clean up, deal with the lock outs, deal with lack of reliable metrics, investigate integrating a proper online identity feature. As the first piece, the minister decided the 35 man team should focus on UX clean up and was given about 13 weeks.

What we had to do (and did)

I joined as Research Lead at the commencement of the Beta stage. (Following a Discovery & Alpha).

  • trained 4 people who'd never done UR before over the course of about 14 weeks

  • demonstrate and advocate for the value of user lead product development to the wider team

  • design and execute valuable research to inform the PM and their decisions

  • be accountable to for delivered live product actually meeting user needs

  • Responsible for help the team pass the DSS criteria that relate to user needs

What we did

UX clean up tranche defined as - language, layout, look & feel, interaction, responsiveness. Specifically, no new features.

'We' - MDT of 35 people, key roles DTA, everyone else DHS

PM, DM, Content design, interaction design x 2, FED x 3, Backend devs, BA, testers, policy (DTA), user researchers x 3-4 and a scary amount of execs from both sides.

  • Hypothesis lead usability testing every sprint.

  • PM give us features to explore, we'd design

  • Test with a sample respresenting the Australian public

  • Launched product update on the 20th May

  • Did 4 weeks of follow up research - inhomes, call centres and service centres

Media

https://www.governmentnews.com.au/mygov-listened-got-says-minister-digital-makeover/

The Idea

You should have asked us ages ago

The idea behind The Matter, is a program that facilitates a group of six young people through a design-based problem solving cycle – from research to ideas. The group works with a real world client, who presents them with a challenging social question. e.g. How should the government listen to young people?
 
Their insights, thoughts and ideas are presented not in a report, but in a self published single edition newspaper.

Designing the program

space to fail, space to grow

Back at the studio I spent the next month shaping the concept and designing the nuts and bolts of the program with the team.

What emerged was an 8 week program with 4 face-to-face sessions with us. We designed each step from selection to aftercare and looked hard at some of the skills we felt young people were missing out on to ensure each stage would provide opportunities for them to gain them, e.g. How to fail fast, time management, interpreting jargon, calculate risk, self promote, reflect and communicate within a team.

From the start we created the program with a scalable business model able to go UK wide, partnering with schools, councils and corporations.

Scaffolding for success

Online and offline support

To support the participants and improve their online skills we developed a custom digital platform for each team. We designed tools for capture and sharing that help participants collate and structure their ideas for the final printed newspaper.

I designed the functionality and graphic feel to be as intuitive as possible since many users would have little web experience. I created cheerful branding and a colour for each stage and generally kept graphic flourishes to a necessary minimum.

Bringing it to life

The first pilot

For the first pilot I co-ordinated our partners, the young people and Snook’s internal resources to bring to life our ideas and start learning in the real world.

Over the 8 weeks, I designed and ran 4 meet up sessions, each time reviewing progress, reflecting on learnings and introduce the group to the new skills and methods they’d need in their next step.

Here’s a rough breakdown of what we covered in each meet up:

1: Research
- interviewing the client
- deciding group roles
- stakeholder mapping
- scheduling

2: Ideas
- Reflections on the process
- synthesising
- idea storyboarding
- pitching

3: Production
- writing workshop
- creating themes
- design direction
- production management

4: Presentations
- final presentation
- networking
- selling the newspaper

The results

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After 4 months work spread over two pilots and numerous iterations, The Matter launched publically in January 2013.

The first pilot was an immense success. The participants presented their final ideas with confidence and conviction in a vivid demonstration of newly acquired, and very employable skills. They had become a community and they Mattered.

The group was invited to write an article for their local paper, received funding for a second print run of their paper and gained fast track support for a Council grant to bring one of their ideas to life – reverse consultation

The transformative dividend was undeniable.

To have kids to go from “I have no future, I will be on benefits for the rest of my life” to “I now have energy to see a better future and the ability to get stuff done” is great.


- City of Edinburgh Council