Connected Experience

A human-centred, design thinking process was applied to make sense of a complex, fragmented digital landscape and chart a strategic path forward.

The team began by conducting discovery research, systems mapping and service blueprinting across policy, operational and program services. This surfaced a clear picture of systemic pain points and duplicated effort across our fragmented landscape.

The design team led co-design workshops to reframe the challenge, not as a single service to fix, but as a layered, platform-based opportunity to drive long-term transformation and design more connected and intuitive experiences. We developed future-state concepts and design principles anchored in simplicity, trust, and the notion of ‘0% Engagement’.

Through iterative prototyping and testing, designers, architects and product leads developed future-state concepts that consolidated interactions into a role-based portal view, making it easier for school staff, parents and carers to access what they need. These prototypes illustrated how data, workflow automation and service touchpoints could be combined to reduce cognitive load and operational friction. Tactile prototypes allowed stakeholders to engage meaningfully with the vision.

The project exceeded the brief by not only delivering a roadmap and feasibility study but also establishing a repeatable strategic framework to guide future product decisions. It created alignment across siloed branches, generated new momentum for transformation, and helped secure senior sponsorship to support implementation.

Final design recommendations are now being embedded in the department’s delivery pipeline. Prototypes and user needs have informed the design of a unified portal experience, that is personalised, contextual, and user-friendly. Key design principles are being used to assess upcoming application releases, ensuring the experience is cohesive, scalable and centred on the needs of school staff and families.

Ultimately, the project demonstrated how design strategy can turn complexity into clarity – and shift a system from reactive delivery to purposeful, human-centred innovation.

This project exemplifies good design by leading with a human-centred approach that focuses on the needs, context and capabilities of the people it serves. At its core, it prioritised user experience, placing school staff, students and parents/carers at the centre of every decision. Through extensive engagement, prototyping, and testing, the project delivered a clear, actionable vision for a unified platform that is not only functional but meaningful, usable, and inclusive.

Functionality was driven by consolidating fragmented tools into a single, intuitive entry point. Instead of layering more applications into an already crowded system, the design streamlines interactions, reduces duplication, and enhances task efficiency.

Accessibility was considered from the outset ensuring the future-state design supports a wide range of user abilities, devices, and digital literacy levels, aligned with WCAG standards and inclusive design practices.

Aesthetics were grounded in clarity and simplicity, favouring clean, intuitive interfaces over decorative complexity.

Safety was addressed through secure design principles and role-based access to sensitive data.

Quality was ensured through iterative prototyping, validation with end users, and collaboration with delivery teams to embed the design into implementation.

Sustainability was achieved by creating a scalable, repeatable design strategy and governance framework, enabling future applications to build upon a consistent experience model, reducing duplication and technical debt.

This project sets a new benchmark by demonstrating how design strategy can transform siloed government services into connected, human-centred ecosystems. It goes beyond interface design to influence operating models, governance, and long-term service delivery. In doing so, it offers a replicable approach for other jurisdictions and sectors, showing how complex public systems can be made not only usable, but trusted, cohesive, and empowering.

By embedding UX at the heart of transformation, this project redefines what digital government services can look like, both in Victoria and beyond.

This project addressed a deeply entrenched problem not with a single product, but through a design-led strategic response to systemic fragmentation, an innovative approach in itself within a large, complex government environment. Rather than developing another application, the team reframed the challenge: how might we simplify, reduce duplication, restore trust, and create a consistent, human-centred experience across a sprawling ecosystem of siloed platforms?

What made the approach original was the fusion of design thinking with systems thinking, applying service design, ecosystem mapping, and human-centred research to align stakeholders around a shared vision. This is not common practice in many public sector digital initiatives, where delivery often occurs in isolation. Our team built an artefact-driven design strategy that allowed people across departments to interact with real prototypes, enabling feedback, alignment, and iteration early, before committing to costly development.

One of the most innovative outcomes was the creation of a unified, role-based portal prototype that demonstrated how dozens of disconnected applications could be experienced as a single, intuitive system. This prototype didn’t just visualise the future, it functioned as a strategic decision-making tool, unlocking conversations across policy, product, and IT that had previously been siloed.

While not a "world-first" in a technical sense, the approach broke new ground in the department’s digital design maturity. It introduced new ways of working, embedding co-design, prototyping, and user testing into early-stage planning, and setting a benchmark for how digital transformation should begin with user needs, not technology.

In doing so, the project pioneered a shift from reactive tech delivery to strategic design leadership, demonstrating that true innovation in government comes not just from what is built, but from how and why it is built.

This project has had a profound impact by transforming how the Department of Education understands and delivers digital services. It shifted the narrative from short-term fixes to long-term, strategic thinking, placing design at the heart of government transformation. Rather than investing in yet another siloed tool, the Department invested in a professional design process to understand the root causes of fragmentation and chart a sustainable path forward.

The result is a clear, validated roadmap and portal strategy that reduces duplication, enhances user trust, and enables school staff, families, and students to focus on what matters most: teaching and learning. By consolidating access to data and services into a single, intuitive experience, the project is expected to significantly reduce administrative burden across Victoria’s schools, improving staff wellbeing, saving time, and increasing engagement with government systems.

Socially, it improves equity of access by simplifying the experience for all users, including those with lower digital literacy or accessibility needs. Economically, it reduces inefficiency and technical debt, avoiding repeated investments in overlapping tools. Environmentally, the design promotes sustainable digital delivery by reducing waste, streamlining services, and enabling scalable design principles to guide future development.

Crucially, the project demonstrates the value of professional design beyond just aesthetics. It shows that design can drive strategic clarity, stakeholder alignment, and system-wide change. This is a model other government departments, and other governments, can adopt, making Victoria a leader in public sector design innovation.

By investing in human-centred design at the outset, the department has not only delivered a smarter digital experience, it has reinforced the importance of designing with people, for people. The legacy of this work is not just a better product, but a more capable, confident and design-literate public sector.