The nsw.gov.au website consolidation project aims to improve the customer experience on NSW Government websites.
Problem
We recently reviewed the current NSW Government websites landscape and identified more than 750 websites on 35 different content management systems.
Many of these websites work well. Agencies have started to adopt a user centred approach to information and service design. However, in the absence of a holistic view of the government’s web architecture, the customer is often only served from an agency perspective creating a disjointed and inconsistent experience.
Objectives
We’re leading a website consolidation project in collaboration with our colleagues across the sector, focussed on improving the customer experience of NSW Government websites.
Our objectives are two-fold:
- Create a unified, customer-centric and innovative digital experience of NSW Government websites
- Generate cost savings for the NSW Government through de-duplication of functionality, content production, platform hosting, website maintenance and other operational costs
Process to-date
Since the project’s inception in mid-2019, we have been developing the way forward to shift to a customer-centric consolidation of websites. This has been developed in consultation with NSW government agencies across all departments by hosting workshops, showcase presentations and one-on-one sessions.
The project is being delivered by our multidisciplinary teams that take an Agile approach to project delivery. The project has been designed to deliver at pace, with frequent incremental releases that focus on providing value to customers.
The project roadmap that the team have adopted is an agile approach with four stages;
- Alpha prototype: October-November 2019
- Beta (Minimum viable product): November 2019-February 2020
- Public beta: February-April 2020
- Ongoing consolidation: From March 2020
The NSW Design System has been used to build the alpha prototype and the beta site. Common and core patterns have been used, which has helped to cut down on design, development and testing time.
We have developed a robust whole-of-government content strategy, to provide a framework to:
- help create an inclusive, consistently high-quality user experience
- determine what content is appropriate to publish and on which website
- outline how content will be organised and managed
- enable agencies to efficiently publish and maintain their content.
Beta launch
The redesigned nsw.gov.au beta website is now live. The beta website includes the minimum features needed to support a number of test customer journeys including births and deaths, active kids, drought and bushfire support.
It’s not perfect, it still needs some design and content refinements, however our incredible team have delivered a huge amount of work in a short timeframe.
Ongoing development, consolidation and continuous improvement will continue on nsw.gov.au. Insights to inform continuous improvement will be gained from on-page direct feedback via thumbs up/thumbs down, further user testing and Google Analytics data.