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Digital Transformation Office hits deadline for Gov.au prototype

Alpha gov.au design adapts to users' circumstances

EXCLUSIVE PIC Australia's Digital Transformation Office (DTO) says it has hit its self-imposed nine-week deadline for the creation of a prototype new gov.au website.

The DTO set the deadline on October 14th and, in an as-yet-unpublished blog post supplied exclusively to Vulture South (for about 90 minutes before publication), said that it spent four weeks on “user research” and five weeks “designing and building a prototype”.

The Office says the approach it devised “has done well in concept and usability testing so far.”

The post we're working from says the prototype “begins to explore how collaborative and consistent approach to the design of services could radically improve usability.”

“We’ve also explored a pattern that allows users to tell us a little about their circumstances and then we present relevant content and information in a way that helps them to create a mental model of what is involved and to keep track of this over time.”

Here's a look at the Alpha, running in iOS.

Gov.au prototype

Prototype Gov.au Alpha on an iPhone

We're told the approach depicted above has been iterated “over the past few weeks in response to user research”.

Working towards a beta design is the DTO's next job, but the agency hasn't offered El Reg a timetable for its delivery.

The research phase for the prototype yielded insights that re-enforce the DTO's reason for being, such as:

  • People often struggle to get a ‘mental model’ of everything that government needs them to know and do, because this information is often spread over several websites. They feel they’re finding out what they’re required to do in just the nick of time, often through asking someone in their personal or professional network.
  • We heard it was easier to pay for professionals to deal with the complexity of government. This was true for both young people and experienced professional across a range of domains including taxation, importing, and people looking for grants.
  • Many of these processes are perceived as very complex and people are very concerned about making a mistake in their dealings with government.
  • From small business owners to migrants and retirees, and there was a common theme: people feel frustrated with the many different government processes across federal, state and local levels that they have to undertake. They call them ‘obstacles’ and ‘hoops’. They understand there are obligations they need to meet but they feel that government is not making it easy to do so.

One last thing: the DTO has admitted to The Register that its October pledge was not entirely clear on the matter of deadlines, as it mentioned a nine-week deadline and four projects. Of the four, only the gov.au prototype was subject to the nine-week deadline. The remainder were given 20-week timeframes. The Register has marked that anniversary and is monitoring the Office's project-tracker.

If you know more about the Office's activities, feel free to get in touch with the author or leave anonymous tips at news@theregister.co.uk. ®

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