Making the complex, simple & the boring, fun.

<h3>Have you ever wondered how safe your car is?&nbsp;</h3>
How Safe Is Your Car (HSIYC) is a digital service provided by Victoria's Transport and Accident Commission (TAC). It enables people to ​make the safest choice in car for them and their family​ by searching, browsing and comparing the safety ratings of vehicles; and educating consumers about recommended safety features.
In 2019, 232 people lost their lives on Victorian roads. The TAC and the Victorian Government believe that zero can be the only acceptable number. The thing is we can all make a difference. By driving at safer speeds, making safe decisions, building safer roads and by choosing safer cars we can bring that number down. The challenge was how do we get people to choose safer cars by bringing together the abundance of existing car data available to everyday people and present it in a way that&rsquo;s easily understood and useful?

Working with car safety experts from TAC we soon learnt what makes a safe car and who could benefit from using this website.&nbsp;
We then also identified&nbsp;that these users desired. Clear information, simple functionality and of course everyone cared about budget. But depending on their lifestage we saw that as experience is gained so is knowledge about cars and their safety.&nbsp;
So at one end of the spectrum when we are new to the road and the other end when we have been driving the same car for long periods of time do we see these people as being out of touch or unaware.&nbsp;

We designed two main paths, searching and browsing. The first enabled people to find the information about a specific car as quickly as possible by looking up make or model or by simply typing in their numberplate.&nbsp;
The second is for those who are looking for a new car. Those unsure of what exactly they want but will have a budget they want to stick to and maybe some other lifestyle factors they need to consider.&nbsp;

Car details are then presented in a simple scanable way with high-level information captured and summarised with more detail available for those who seek it.&nbsp;
We also created car comparison as it was something requested during moderated testing sessions. Many asked to have the ability to see options side by side to help them make a decision. However comparison not being the simplest things to execute on mobile, we used the ecommerce patterns of a mini cart to make it easy for people to collect cars they wanted to compare. &nbsp;

The interface is designed to entice interaction and feel effortless. Visual elements such as the systematic use of colour helps to place prominence on things like buttons, sliders and other interactive components.
While there was an abundance of great data it was up to us to make connections that made it more meaningful. Like presenting similar but safer recommendations that had a complex set of business rules and logic powering what should be displayed based on scoring and safety weighting.&nbsp;

We used both moderated testing as well as online testing to gain confidence on what people needed as well as the usability of some of the more complex features and content.

A heavily data driven website where most of the front end components are driven by data pulled from other providers like Redbook and ANCAP.&nbsp;
A very interesting project, and this summary doesn&rsquo;t do it justice&hellip; So go on now look up how safe your car is&hellip;
<h3>Lesson:</h3>
The balance of design influencing data and data influencing design is an act that requires early prototyping and compromise.

Your car, my car, all the cars…

<h3 style="text-align: left;">As an Australian owned and grown product, Cobram Estate produce some of the finest quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the world. </h3>
As a favourite everyday brand, they had a desire to improve their connection with shoppers by sharing and celebrating their history and story.

It was a pleasure to get the opportunity to visit the pristine Cobram olive groves in country Victoria and learn about the careful process taken by dedicated farmers in getting olive oil from the farm to our dinner tables.

Besides the celebration of process and story, we also designed a hub for the sharing of recipes, a key trigger in return visitation and online engagement. Through this entry point do we see the most conversion in online sales, through a straightforward ecommerce and checkout flow.

To wrap it all up we combined beautiful rich imagery, brand footage and elements of nature to showcase the Cobram brand. The end result was a reflection of the product available on the shelf, carefully crafted, simple and refined.

<h3>Lesson:</h3>
Visual communication of any kind should, whether persuasive or informative, be seen as the embodiment of form and function. The integration of the beautiful and the useful.&nbsp;

Celebrating the finest ingredients

<h3>What is more fun than sorting out your health insurance? Doing your tax return perhaps?&nbsp;</h3>
Well what if I told you that together these two life sucking adult tasks could save you money if you know what your doing. But there it is, the fatal flaw. Not everyone is an accountant and let&rsquo;s be honest hardly anyone understands health insurance.&nbsp;

ahm have a point of difference, to keep it simple. So put that calculator away and let&rsquo;s do the hard work for you.&nbsp;

First we had to actually understand what it all meant ourselves, so short of obtaining a masters in accounting we needed to understand the ins and outs of concepts like the Medicare Levy Surcharge to be able to then distill it into a couple of bullet points people would understand and appreciate.&nbsp;

To then execute we created a simple tool where we asked for a little bit of information from people, and through effortless interactions like sliders and drop downs we could tell you how much money ahm and their products could save you&hellip; or not save you.&nbsp; 
The tool and the content was extremely well received. It helped users make better informed decisions on their need for private health insurance as well as saw a significant uplift in product sales for ahm. And they all lived happily ever after.

<h3>Lesson:&nbsp;</h3>
No one wants to think or care about Private Health Cover but if you show them how they could save money, it&rsquo;s a completly different story.&nbsp;

Hip pocket appeal

<h3>To help my readers, best understand the scale of this project we must look at the physical form of Chadstone, the largest shopping centre of its kind in the southern hemisphere.</h3>
Home to over 500 retailers, a hotel, corporate offices and a pipeline of continuous development to keep expanding. It is the largest project I&rsquo;ve ever worked on.&nbsp;

While working in an agile team with just over 4 months to design, build and launch, there were various epic&rsquo;s to work through. Information architecture, mapping and wayfinding, parking, retailer directories, tourism and much, much more.&nbsp;

One of the first challenges we faced was the organisation of information. Combining the functional requirements a user might need with that of inspirational, luxurious content that the Chadstone brand was so synonymous for.&nbsp;
We developed and tested various iterations of site navigation and through mixed methods of testing, such as surveys and treejacks we were unable to land on the perfect solution in our time frame. Instead we decided on a structure that allowed multiple paths to ambiguous information. This process also helped us understand the reliance and power necessary for a successful site search.&nbsp;

Navigation was another monster of a task. Helping people not just navigate in store but to and from, using public transport, free transfer buses or driving only to then have to...park. This was fascinating situation where there was plenty of parking on most days and at most times but the public seemed to be harbouring a false sense of fear whenever they chose to go. So how could we stop the&nbsp;deterrent&nbsp;of parking keeping people from the center?&nbsp;

Focus was also placed in highlighting not just the shopping ellement of chadstone but also the entertainment and dining precincts. We also designed key pages to help international visitors experience the centre and better cater to tourism.&nbsp;

The work was also acknowledge through it&rsquo;s win at the 2017 AMY awards.

The fashion capital

<h3>Working closely with the digital team this work is a proud step forward for Swisse on their journey to be category leaders through better ecommerce strategies, compelling content and personalisation.</h3>
This project was designed, developed and delivered in stages. With a foundational approach, we first reimagined the online experience without the checkout flow because of the technical limitations at the time. The initial focus was ensuring discoverability of content and products, creating a design system that incorporated new brand direction and established reusable patterns and components that could be driven by data and personalised for individual audiences.

Discoverability of content is always critical. Reviewing search terms and analytics we learnt that there is no one way people where looking for information, with some searching by name, others by benefit or ingredient. It was also discovered that conversion would increase if people had first seen content that spoke to the benefits or the scientific credibility of Swisse products (proof)
We utilised <a href="https://www.algolia.com" rel="follow">Algolia</a> for search, that enabled us to easily develop tailored and fast search results.&nbsp;
We also placed emphasis in making the information architecture clear and simple but also modelled around logical groupings of products as well as existing ranges.&nbsp;
We then created flows that tapped into not just one type of content but allowed content to mix, ensuring that there was always an opportunity to continue onto more relevant content or products.&nbsp;

Pages and components were also designed and structured in a way that allowed for personalisation though the capture of implicit and explicit data.&nbsp;
An additional focus was on increasing membership registration. So paired with great benefits we positioned messaging and CTA&rsquo;s to deliberately make it require no thought and is quick and simple to complete. &nbsp;

After a CMS replatform onto<a href="https://craftcms.com" rel="follow"> Craft</a> we were then able to direct the effort towards the ecommerce function of the Swisse site.&nbsp;
The eccomerce space is incredibly competitive. Brands, business, and the people who run them continue to advance and so should their digital experiences. The cycle of ever changing design aesthetics, technical capabilities, shipping trends and economic shifts will continue to challenge design decisions around ecommerce solutions. However the online shopping mechanism has been around for a significant amount of time now and we shouldn't try to change it.&nbsp;

For Swisse, we added to our UI foundations by redesigning the product detail pages, mini cart, checkout flow and members section. We took into consideration how we could make the process quick and simple. We thought about first time users, return users as well as advocates and their loyalty.

We also explored ideas like free samples, bundling, upsell / cross selling products and redemption of free shipping.&nbsp;
There was also challenges around discount stacking, credit, mixed payment methods and global shipping to be solved.&nbsp;

While the numbers can&rsquo;t be shared, It is incredibly rewarding to see an increase in metrics following this collection of work. Cart conversion has seen a significant increase as has overall sales.
<h3>Lesson:</h3>
Over the course of its life a digital products is shaped by many hands. It was a pleasure to get the opportunity to contribute to this one.

Buy some health & happiness

<h3>How do you make aged care easier to access and understood by all?</h3>
Besides the confusing government funding packages, perplexing industry jargon there is also the hard fact that most people don&rsquo;t even want to think about aged care unless they have to. Thus the focus was simple things done well.

With a range of different service offerings suited to a broad spectrum of people, we designed, prototyped and tested a simplified navigation that allowed people to find the information and services they needed. Tools and calculators to help people figure out the costs of these essential services. All delivered through an AA accessible design system.

After analysing the key tasks a person would wish to achieve and the content we needed to structure, we decided on a fairly flat navigation hierarchy with a limited set of options that is clear and forgiving if someone wasn&rsquo;t sure. This tested well.&nbsp;

To design well, we needed to create a design system that contains all the visual elements of the website. The design system must transmit the how, but also the why, so that the elements are consistent on their own, but specially together. Also despite what some people may say about an ageing population it is essential for brands to be constantly youthful. Why? Because of you are youthful you have a future. You own tomorrow.&nbsp;

Lastly we must never forget to think about how the people we are deigning for are feeling. Confused, frightened, powerless are a few commonly associated emotions when thinking about aged care. So we made it easy, we took all of the complicated information and created clear and transparent calculators and questionnaires. This way the technology did all the hard work and left people feeling empowered and supported.&nbsp;

<h3>Lesson: Design is never done.&nbsp;</h3>
Design is the art of continuous problem solving, an active cycle of investigation and validating needs, crafting and developing ideas and creating solutions. You won&rsquo;t get it right first time, test and learn.&nbsp;

Making the complex, simple & the boring, fun.

See all of my secrets

Making the complex, simple & the boring, fun.

See all of my secrets

Making the complex, simple & the boring, fun.

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Making the complex, simple & the boring, fun.

See all of my secretsarrow_forward

See all of my secrets

See all of my secrets