As the State Government's largest agency, the DoE needed a robust and highly intelligent web strategy.
The Department of Education (DoE) manages the State's 800+ schools throughout regional and metropolitan WA. The Department's commitment is "for every child to have a high quality education, whatever their ability, wherever they live, whatever their background" so it was imperative that the website was overhauled to help achieve this goal. The previous website had numerous user experience and content flow issues which put up severe roadblocks to users.
Equilibrium was engaged by the Department to develop a new website strategy, including information architecture, wireframing, prototyping and design. The site was then handed over to DoE's internal web development team for the build.
The primary focus of the website is to allow parents of prospective students to source information on public education programs and services through the Department's website before enrolling their children in one of the 800 autonomous schools across the State. The website aims to build and instill confidence in public education with parents.
Equilibrium underwent a comprehensive department-wide scoping phase to develop a list of requirements to inform the website strategy.
We developed a new Information Architecture (IA) for the website and developed full interactive prototypes to test the IA and proposed functionality. The prototypes were tested on real end users, including parents. Any usability issues and roadblocks were identified at this stage prior to the commencement of design and development phases.
Equilibrium initiated several new design and IA features to improve the user experience.
A reworked navigation system allows parents to drill quickly into information relevant to their child's age group.
We implemented sticky navigation systems for the most frequently accessed information, including Term Dates, Enrolling in School and Find a School.
An interactive calculator allows parents to calculate when their child can start school.
