Florence: Lighting the Way for Nurses

Florence exemplifies design excellence through its clarity, warmth and fit-for-purpose execution. It’s simple to use, yet powerful in capability, giving nurses the tools to manage professional learning in a way that feels personal and rewarding. Visually, Florence departs from the clinical design language of healthcare. Its bespoke wordmark, highlighter yellow accents and humanising brand devices (like the Coxcomb and Light Pen) are deliberate nods to the nursing profession’s legacy and values, reinterpreted for a digital age. The colour palette carefully balances warmth and energy without sacrificing readability or professionalism.

Every part of Florence’s interface is designed to reinforce clarity, trust and empowerment. One standout feature is the Coxcomb chart (a visualisation inspired by Florence Nightingale’s pioneering work) which allows nurses to see their progress and compare their skill development against peer benchmarks. It’s a meaningful connection to nursing history that also delivers real value in the present.  Critically, the user experience is not just functional but emotionally attuned. Florence recognises the constraints and emotional load carried by nurses and responds with encouragement and focus. Tools like the goal setter (which gives nurses the space to plan their next career move) and the quick capture (which enables fast, on-the-go CPD logging) helps users feel confident, organised and supported, not overwhelmed.

Florence sets a new benchmark for digital tools in the care economy: thoughtful, human-centred, technically robust and visually distinct. It also bridges service design, product thinking, branding, marketing and more. Beyond tracking, Florence supports learning, discovery and connection. Employers can find qualified candidates. Nurses can watch their knowledge and skills grow and get clear, actionable insights into how to achieve their goals.  Florence bridges service design, product thinking, branding, marketing and more. It reflects a design culture in Victoria that leads with empathy and delivers meaningful outcomes through smart, inclusive design.

Florence is already having a meaningful, measurable impact. Within the first 48 hours, Florence climbed into the Top 10 apps in the App Stores Education category, driven by genuine interest from the nursing community. As former Productivity Commission Chair Michael Brennan noted, “Health is a sector with remarkable technological uptake when it comes to medical innovation... but a laggard when it comes to the use of general technology to improve the quality of service to patients.” Florence directly addresses this gap, demonstrating how digital tools can support, retain and empower the frontline workforce. For individual nurses, the app simplifies complex, time-consuming CPD requirements, reducing stress, improving organisation, and helping users feel more confident in meeting their professional obligations.

Florence helps nurses feel supported and seen – a vital emotional impact in a sector known for burnout and under-recognition.  For APNA, Florence provides a powerful engagement tool. It allows the organisation to deepen its relationship with members by offering real, daily utility, not just information. It also facilitates more efficient recruitment and credential management, helping to bridge gaps in the primary healthcare workforce. At a system level, Florence addresses a growing national issue: the retention and support of nurses in non-hospital settings. By empowering these professionals, the platform helps strengthen the capacity of Australia’s primary healthcare system, critical as the demand for community-based care continues to rise. The economic benefits of better workforce retention, reduced burnout and more efficient compliance processes are substantial. And because Florence is scalable and continuously evolving, its impact will only grow, with new features planned that support mentoring, recognition, and broader learning initiatives.

Florence is also a testament to the state’s capacity for world-class digital design with social purpose, contributing to the reputation of Victoria’s creative industries as leaders in thoughtful, responsible and impactful design.

The Florence platform was developed through a deeply collaborative and user-focused process. APNA undertook research with primary health care nurses to understand the challenges they faced around CPD tracking, and shared these insights with Liquorice during early discovery workshops. These sessions validated personas and user journey maps, which shaped the platform’s features, language and tone from the outset. Working closely with APNA, Liquorice developed a brand strategy anchored in the idea of “Potential.” And a Florence Nightingale inspired tagline “Light the Way”. This platform informed a warm, approachable visual identity and plainspoken verbal tone prioritising clarity, empowerment and trust. User flows and wireframes were then developed with APNA’s team and informed by their understanding of nurses’ needs.

The Florence project team included experienced nurses, and many more were engaged for feedback and testing, ensuring the platform was grounded in real frontline experience and genuinely co-designed with those it serves. This input shaped key features and interface decisions, resulting in a streamlined, intuitive experience designed to support users with varying levels of digital literacy. Before launch, the platform underwent rigorous testing, including QA, system integration, accessibility checks and user acceptance testing with APNA and its members.

The result is a digital service that exceeded the brief: not just a CPD tracker, but a holistic career tool. Implementation included training and content migration for APNA. Post-launch, Liquorice continues to support enhancements through a continuous improvement model, and further design and development sprints, based on live user feedback. Florence is driving strong engagement and is well positioned for future growth.

Florence reimagines CPD not as a box-ticking exercise, but as an opportunity for professional growth, reframing, and reinventing a traditionally burdensome task as an empowering experience. This conceptual shift drove a series of design innovations across the platform and brand. CPD platforms are often bureaucratic and transactional.

Florence reimagines this experience. It doesn’t just meet a regulatory requirement, it reflects back to nurses a sense of worth, pride and potential. The tone of voice is clear and kind. The design language is uplifting, never condescending. Every decision (from interface layout to colour choice) was made with empathy and empowerment in mind.

One of the most innovative aspects of Florence is its dual role as both compliance tool and career companion. In addition to CPD logging, the app connects nurses to educational resources, job opportunities, and real-time data insights that help shape their professional path. The coxcomb graph gives nurses a clear view of their knowledge and skills, enabling them to compare it with peers and plan their professional development that is more strategically aligned to their aspirations and interests. This extends the platform’s value beyond basic tracking into meaningful career development, a significant leap forward in the sector.

The brand itself is also a key innovation. Inspired by Florence Nightingale’s iconic lantern, and her revolutionary coxcomb graph, the visual identity avoids clichés and instead embraces contemporary design codes to create something uplifting and memorable. The warm, digital-first identity is expressed consistently across tone of voice, interface design, and system architecture, building trust and engagement through every interaction. Ultimately,

Florence is not just a new app, it represents a new way of thinking about how we support, retain and empower health professionals. It is a user-led, design-led innovation that opens new possibilities for professional development in community health and beyond.