How we’re using real life to make government content better
Public servants want to make things easier for citizens and government, but sometimes we get in our own way because government is so complex. A true-to-life approach to content could be the answer.
Public servants want to help citizens — but we need to make things simple first
As public servants, our aim is often to improve things. Organising things, streamlining things, making things easier or faster — these are all part of our jobs. All 300,000 of them.
When we’re working on ways to make things better, easier or different in the digital space, there is often lots of overlap. Things have shared themes, shared ideas and, often, shared users. But our content is not always presented together, and this can make navigating our information challenging for both people living in Victoria and the people trying to improve digital services for them.
The government is a complex beast, made up of a big web of departments, branches, agencies and offices, all necessary to fulfil our duty to the people of Victoria. But understanding every aspect of how government operates shouldn’t be a requirement for real people to access information and services — so we’re trying to make things a bit simpler.
Having a baby: a non-guided tour of government
The complexity of government can be challenging to work through at the best of times, but it can be more stressful at times of major life change.
For someone trying to find information about what to do when they’re having a baby, for example, that complexity can be overwhelming. I know that, because I had a baby in 2018.
When I had my daughter, the government was already pretty techy and I could do a fair bit of what I needed to online, but I still needed to navigate my own way through:
- Medicare
- Services Australia (Commonwealth)
- Department of Health and Human Services (State)
- Centrelink
- Births, Deaths and Marriages
- Local government
- Maternal and Child Health Services
- Australian Tax Office
I like to think of myself as pretty techy too, so I wanted to find out the best, fastest and most straightforward way of making sure the government knew I was having a baby, so I could receive Paid Parental Leave entitlements and make sure my daughter was on my Medicare card.
My experience navigating government as an expectant parent
Here’s what I did: I tried googling it, didn’t immediately see something that I felt related to me, then went on Facebook and asked a local Mums and Bubs group I am in. I never visited a government website and I never spoke to anyone from government until it was time to take actions, like activating my MyGov account.
This isn’t a criticism of any of our colleagues’ work of course, but more of an indication of where my scrambled mum brain was at the time.
I couldn’t even really tell you why I short-circuited and went straight to the mums. I wish I could! I bet our UX researchers do too. But what I do know is this: if someone in that Mums and Bubs group had said ‘Here’s a link to a step-by-step guide about having a baby in Victoria, with all the main things you need to do linked out from it,’ I would have clicked that link like my life depended on it.
Life events: a ‘real life’ solution to a government problem
Lots of smart people, both in government and not, are working in the life events space to improve service and content design for their users. In Victorian government, we are lucky enough to be able to share knowledge with our very smart colleagues in other states and territories, the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), and over in New Zealand to make sure we are working in areas that are new, useful and repeatable across states (and seas).
Here in Victoria, our first foray into the life events space is using life event journey maps (maps of how a person experiences a life event like having a baby), then mapping the government touch points they need to interact with over those maps, and creating a guide out of that map. We’ve used this method to build guides for finding a job and buying your first home, and we’re working on a series of other guides to be released this year.
Because the digital touchpoints a person needs to see cut across state, local and federal government, as well as a wide variety of departments, we rely on our colleagues in all of these government areas to work closely with us in creating the content for the guides. Put simply, they are the ones who tell us which of their pages go where, and we find the best way to show people how those points fit together. Without our colleagues in other departments, these pieces of content wouldn’t exist.
Life events in 2020 and beyond
The Australian Data and Digital Council has agreed that life events are a key area of focus for data and digital professionals in government, which means this area of work looks set to grow rapidly in 2020. As our work in the space progresses, we meet more and more people working on exciting projects all the time.
No one group or team in government has the patent on this type of work, so places for sharing and collaboration, like GovX’s Life Events Communities, are a crucial part of how we stay informed and ensure we are working in alignment with other jurisdictions.
In February, we’re also bringing colleagues from GovX, New Zealand’s Life Events team, and our team in Victoria to Melbourne for a panel discussion on their work, successes and lessons in the life events arena, building products and services for people having babies, dealing with the death of loved ones and much more.
If you work in the Victorian Public Service and are interested in joining us for the session, you can register to attend via the Innovation Network.
Rebecca Sloan is a Content Journey Producer in the Victorian Government’s Digital, Design and Innovation branch. Her work aims to improve service design for people living in Victoria through thoughtful, user-focused content and solutions.
