About

Challenge:
Two in five NSW children under 5 are behind in development

Client:
NSW Dept. of Customer Service | Life Journeys Program

My Role:
Lead Product Designer

Key Outcomes

Stakeholders and challenges

Our main stakeholders were cross-departmental experts in child health, development, and education. Customers were parents and carers of children aged 0–5, with a focus on vulnerable cohorts.

Previous research assessment gave us validated customer needs

I reviewed 8 existing research and testing documents, plus related research for vulnerable cohorts, to summarise customer needs and pains around finding actionable child development information.

Turning research into customer profiles

I built a profile of parents and carers, plus individual profiles for vulnerable cohorts — including culturally and linguistically diverse families, and children or parents with disabilities. These served two purposes: summarising discovery findings, and giving the design and testing phase ready-made tools.

A market scan found three real gaps to fill

I reviewed 10+ key parent support websites for NSW parents, plus the Hub’s own Phase 1, to find where our point of difference could be most meaningful.

Reframing the Hub into a doorway, not a destination

Stakeholders were passionate about the information they provided, which sometimes made it hard for them to prioritise what parents and carers actually needed to digest. We also needed to avoid repeating content across departmental sites.

To solve this, I reframed the Hub as a “Concierge and Doorway” to the detailed information already living on each department’s site — meaning the Hub itself only needed to show small, digestible, action-based content.

That research-informed reframe became our design equation

With that reframe agreed, I combined it with the research and market scan findings into a single equation that defined our challenge—then played this back to the Hub’s owners to confirm direction.

The Hub owners agreed with the direction, and committed to a workshop with experts from other departments to collaboratively decide which actions to display.

Exploring ideas and what work they would create for other departmemts

Program changes and budget reviews delayed stakeholder engagement, so before I could interview departments directly, I used the time to explore potential solutions and think ahead about the investment each idea would require — a useful exercise given budget was already a live concern.

Simplicity, not more information, was what parents actually needed

The clearest finding was that helping parents take action started with being clear about what the actions were, paired with simple guidance on how to do them. I mocked these up to help stakeholders see the value of starting simple.

Early-concept testing confirmed simple, scannable tips were what landed

To test whether simple, clear development tips would actually land with parents, I tested two versions of a “development action,” plus one in-situ concept of how multiple tips might appear on a Hub page.

Method: Moderated, 30 minutes, 8 participants (4 male / 4 female), various cultures, 1 CALD participant.

I also asked about behaviour more broadly: how parents find development information, what makes it hard, what helps them act on it, and how they remember advice.

A joint workshop got three departments deciding actions together

To support collaborative decision-making, we ran a workshop with around 20 experts from Health, Education, and DCJ. We split them into 3 teams to decide which development actions they’d prioritise and how, then had each team share back.

Method: Moderated, in-person, 2 hours, ~20 participants.

By being heard—and hearing each other—departments got to surface their different needs and priorities around choosing actions for the Hub.

Agreeing on a criteria for decision-making

Categories needed to flex by age, not just by topic

Most participants agreed we should use consistent categories across ages—which also helps parents see how development areas connect—while allowing some age-specific categories where needed.

We’d also test variations, including filter-based combinations.

Three outputs carried the project into its next phase

Three things came out of this project: UX guidance, customer profiles, and a measurement approach.

1. UX guidance now shapes the design and testing phase

The same profiles built during discovery now inform design and testing recruitment.

2. Customer profiles carry over into design and testing

The same profiles built during discovery now inform design and testing recruitment.

3. Defining what success will look like

We started exploring how to measure real-world impact: tracking engagement (e.g. accordion clicks), and exploring whether action-taking shows up in the next state child development report. “Measurability” may itself become a criterion for choosing which actions to prioritise.

Beyond the UX recommendations themselves, this project created the first shared foundation for collaboration between departments that had rarely worked together on this problem before.