From March through to May 2023, myself and 5 other Master’s students from Victoria University of Wellington undertook a project for the Ministry of Justice.
Following the 2019 Te Korowai Ture a-Whanau report, the Ministry of Justice re-evaluated the Care of Children pages on their website to strengthen and connect families with their services.
10 week project
6 Master's Students
UX Research, Product Design, User testing and Information Architecture
Our goal was to develop and apply a comprehensive Design System for the Ministry of Justice, that merges the successful elements of the Care of Children enhancements, into the remainder of the Family Section to guarantee consistency and enhance the websites usability. By improving the websites usability, we aimed to make the process clearer for families to find the information and services they need, trying to reduce stress during vulnerable times.
The Design System we created is essentially a toolbox for the Ministry, containing guidelines for building their website better, faster, and more consistently. This will accelerate design processes for the Ministry as well as build bridges between the different teams within the Ministry itself.
To demonstrate our Design System, we re-designed the Separation and Divorce section of the website applying the concepts from our Design system.
The art of communicating ideas and feedback is key in a group setting. This experience taught me that effective communication goes beyond speaking clearly, it is also about actively listening.
Adapting to challenges and understanding group dynamics is a strong part of a successful group project. This project taught me how to navigate through challenges and overcome creative roadblocks.
Giving feedback and being able to receive feedback is crucial in being able to lead a successful team. This allows for everyone’s opinions and voices to be heard and fuels a collaborative environment.
Following the 2019 Te Korowai Ture a-Whanau report, the Ministry of Justice re-evaluated the Care of Children pages on their website to strengthen and connect families with their services.
Understand and explore the User behaviour from both the updated portions of the website as well as the non-updated portions of the website, with a specific focus on User navigation.
Identify the strengths and areas for improvement from both updated and non-updated portions of the website.
We conducted a thorough audit of both the current and updated webpages of the Ministry's website. This involved analyzing the content, structure, and navigation of each page. By doing so, we gained a comprehensive understanding of the website's IA structure, identified inconsistencies, and highlighted areas for improvement.
Conducting stakeholder interviews allowed us to gain insights of the methods and processes used during the Care of Children update, as well as allowing us to further understand the stakeholders’ perspectives and expectations of our project.
Through affinity mapping we were able to gather 3 key insights:
Prioritising inclusivity and user-friendly content are essential for improving user engagement, which in turn reaches a more diverse audience and enhances accessibility.
Adopting plain language and being mindful of the use of jargon, is important for ensuring inclusivity and clear communication for non-native English speakers.
Effective collaboration with key community groups maximises opportunities to increase accessibility and fosters inclusivity.
A few team members conducted comparative usability testing to gather observations, and behaviours regarding how users interact with both the updated and non-updated portions of the website.
To enhance our design process, we conducted a comprehensive Information Architecture (IA) workshop with stakeholders and subject matter experts from the Ministry of Justice. During this workshop, we conducted a card-sorting activity. This activity allowed us to gather insights into how these experts and stakeholders perceived the IA structure of the website. By comparing their assumptions with the actual order of the cards, we identified discrepancies and opportunities for improvement.
Our aim was to create a Design System that contained the successful elements of the Care of Children update and our own suggested improvements as well as being a one stop shop for the Ministry.
The Separation and Divorce pages of the Ministry website are the most frequently visited pages of the family section (as per Google Analytics), therefore, our aim was to create a prototype for the Separation and Divorce pages to showcase our Design System, utilising the Care of Children design along with our own subtle improvements.
While half of the team focused on developing IA principles and the website prototype my half of the team set our focus in creating the comprehensive design system.
The goal was to create a Design System that the Ministry of Justice would use and continue expanding as their website continues to update.
Project link
The design system is consistent in design and aesthetic with the Care of Children webpage to give the user a visual link with the website to the design system.
This compares the current design and our suggested changes. The toggle not only explains the reasoning for the changes we have made, but also aims to educate the User by showing and explaining, not just telling.
The side navigation allows the User to access every topic within the page and the design system.
Incorporating an in-website example of the element into the design system allows the user to quickly associate the element with the in-website use and ensure consistent use of elements.
The do’s and dont’s allow the User to have a clear example of what can and cannot be done regarding the topic of the page.
A key future consideration is conducting usability testing on the design system with MOJ employees. We spent a great amount of time designing and refining the Design System, however, usability testing would provide us valuable insights on whether the information and structure is clear and intuitive for our intended users.
A major skill that this project encouraged was clear communication. This not only included communicating clearly but also actively listening to diverse perspectives. By prioritizing clear communication, our team was able to create a healthy collaborative environment, which contributed to the project’s success.
I would also add that this was the first experience with real stakeholders and a website that is currently being used which made the experience real and relevant.