Unravelling a complex system
Using a design thinking approach to re-imagine the government news and media ecosystem
Client BC Government
The challenge of this project was to gain a common understanding of the existing systems and the roles of different stakeholder groups in the process of creating, managing and publishing government communications to multiple channels. Once we could visualize the bigger picture system at the technology, process and people level, it was possible to see opportunities for change.
Projects begin with a research deep dive
Initial Research & Persona Creation
The project began with a deep dive into both user research and user interviews. Data was synthesized and used to create lightweight personas, which were then fleshed-out with stakeholders to achieve a complete view of the key audience groups, their needs and challenges.
Customer Journey Mapping and Co-Creation
Two half-day workshops were held with stakeholders for news.gov.bc.ca and The Hub. During the workshop, stakeholders collaborated to draw up an assessment of the service design for the communications platforms through the lens of the personas, each of which had a key usage scenario.
Prioritization Workshop
Once customer journey maps were established, we identified opportunity areas and developed a priority ranking framework with our recommendations. A workshop was held with stakeholders for all of us to align on an approach for which opportunities would be addressed in each of the upcoming design sprints.
Concepting & Prototype Creation
Three sprints were engaged to develop conceptual interactive designs in prototype format for the upgraded communications experience. Each sprint concluded with a review alongside internal stakeholders and re-alignment for the following sprint.
Summary of findings, key themes, and recommendations
Conceptual Design User Testing
To ensure the conceptual direction was valid, we recruited from various audience groups and validated our designs with moderated user testing. A summary of findings, key themes, and recommendations moving forward were presented to the stakeholder with clear direction on next steps in this process.