The Early Years Count

Role ⸻ UX Designer | Time ⸻ 2016 | Status ⸻ Launched

The Queensland Government wanted to help parents and carers understand the importance of investing time in their child’s early development. They approached Ogilvy to build an online resource for this purpose. On a personal level, this project was one I truly believed in. I come from a family of educators and care industry workers and I believe education and care to be vital for a child’s prospective future.

This project tested my ability to maintain focus on a singular purpose while navigating the Government’s legislative requirements. The website had to be accessible to all parents, carers and children including lower socioeconomic and indigenous communities. Care had to be taken during the design process to ensure the website would pass rigorous testing and user acceptance, while also being engaging and useful for the user.

We began the process by workshopping with key user groups. We discovered their needs and utilised the government’s wealth of data on parents and carers to inform our design. I developed a preliminary site map and information architecture based on these findings.

I created high fidelity wireframes which we user-tested and iterated upon. The wireframes also were submitted to a website consistency and usability department within Queensland Government for further testing.

The visual language I developed for the website is based on the five engagement types:

Play
Care
Talk & Listen
Read & Count
Encourage

This colour palette formed the visual way-finding of the site and reinforced the information architecture. I also created an icon pattern for each category to be used across the content. I used Lato for the website typography due to its readability and playfulness.

A key finding from the research is the need to engage with children in a variety of ways appropriate to their phases of growth. This informed the decision to arrange content by key age groups. We also created a tool for parents and carers to enter their details and served them a page specifically catered to their needs.

The final design reflects the playful and engaging direction of the initiative. This site has now become a content resource for not only parents and carers, but teachers, doctors and community groups. The websites expandability means it will continue to remain current for the longterm.

This project tested my ability to remain within strict design constraints while delivering a site that is visually engaging and enjoyable to use. The approvals process for government websites meant I had to justify my design choices within client presentations and provide written documentation for every phase.

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