This website was a collaborative project involving EPA Victoria (Environment Protection Authority), the Victorian Department of Health, and WorkSafe. Collectively, these organisations have the responsibility for the regulation and protection of Victorians from exposure to asbestos at home, at work and in the environment.

This was a major Victoria Government project involving dozens of people from diverse backgrounds and industries and spanned nearly 12 months.

The Brief

Build a single, WOVG site for Asbestos related advice.

The site will feature content from Department of Health, EPA, MWMG and WorkSafe. It, therefore, needs to be a neutral branded site, with reference to each partner.

At present, the current asbestos information is old, tired and difficult to find. The content is spread over numerous websites, numerous pages and is poorly structured. The content is also not aligned and features little interactivity. There is little consensus around the advice that exists at the moment, so all the copy needs to be aligned around a single voice.

Content should be fully responsive to all platforms and devices.

The site should be easy to ‘choose your adventure’, and get right the following issues:

1. Audience Segmentation
2. Task Prioritisation
3. Workflow Process (progress of your journey)
4. Guidance and Data Visualisation

The overall tone of the site should be one of

‘Asbestos can be dangerous, but if you manage the risks properly, it’s not going to be a problem’.

User research

The digital team at WorkSafe had strong input from the beginning with tasks including user research and requirements gathering, who is the audience (six personas developed), what the top tasks are, and what the journeys are for each audience. We need a journey that takes the user through the issues and provides a way for them to identify what they need to do. We don’t need to teach people everything about the subject – we need to show them what they need to do to make their workplace or home safer.

Other questions we had

• How can we provide short cuts and advice for people who don’t go for the info – those that cut straight to solutions?
• List of good guidance – how we present a list of good Asbestos guidance to people. What format does the guidance follow
• How do we show progress – how do we show people where they are in the process and what steps are still to come?
• Use of content and info graphics
• How do we segment people as they go through the site and make it more relevant (Task vs industry vs role)

UX stages

Project kickoff and background research

• to ensure alignment in terms of the project’s objectives, outcomes and time frames, and an understanding of the domain and  required content for the site

3-4 user workshops to gather detailed user requirements and information needs, concept test different IA and design approaches,

• stakeholder workshop to consolidate business requirements and user journeys, identify an agreed high-level information structure for the site, agree on design priorities and create high-level draft wireframe sketches for key site pages

Participative app and form design workshops

• with selected subject matter experts to workflow and create high-level draft wireframe sketches for up to 6 apps

IA and design finalisation,

• includes a functional specification that documents the information architecture to 2-levels and finalised wire frame and app designs with specifications for user interactivity

Usability testing and updated functional specification

• to validate and refine the IA and recommended designs with representative users.

Delivery

WorkSafe engaged Squiz to work with us on this project to help with the information architecture, wireframes and design, development. There were a number of apps requiring API data connections such as geolocation and postal data for nearest dump sites, and asbestos removalists.

This project earned WorkSafe digital team awards for innovation and collaboration.