The journey for PetRescue started a few years ago, with a casual conversation at a Leederville coffee shop, slowly it became on an ongoing project that’s often been constrained by time and budgetary resources during the time period.

At the time the PetRescue website was operating on an aging code and design base that had been patched and “quick fixed” too many times in order to keep this extremely popular site operational.

Client:

PetRescue

Industry:

Not for Profit

Project Focus:

UX Design

PetRescue approached us with the aim to redesign the site the right way focusing on the audience but maintaining a level of learned experience.

After establishing an outline of the audience and their usage patterns it was discovered that using the PetRescue site was an extremely emotional journey as a would be adoptee decided on a pet and then dealt with the subsequent rescue group.

Overall the project delivered a design direction and solution for a responsively designed website via a series of wireframes, while promoting a distinct personality of the website to help ease the emotional journey.

We were not responsible for the final visual design that honour goes to the Frontier Group.

Processes and Techniques Used

• Web Analytics
• Survey Design and Analysis
• Persona Development
• User Journey Generation
• UX Solution Design
• Wireframing
• UX Consulting

The Department of Mines and Petroleum (DMP) approached radharc looking for a solid direction and confirmation of the user experience issues with the core of their website.

Together with the DMP we first off looked at the strategic level of the web communication platform. Focusing on the main reasons for use of the website. This in turn led to the scoping of the “who really was the audience”.

As with most government agencies the scope of the audience started with – “everyone”; however it become very evident early on using the available research and the knowledge from in-house domain experts that the audience was focused around 6 key personas.

Client:

Department of Mines and Petroleum

Industry:

Government

Project Focus:

Usability Review

With a good understanding the site’s audience the direction changed to gathering research to confirm and extend the knowledge base on “how the website was really used by the audience”. For this a bank of interviews were conducted with key experienced members of the audience, reflected by the personas.

This ux research material allowed for mapping of the journeys the audience were going through using the website, and the tasks that influenced and resulted from it’s use.   As expected the audience personas were also clarified at this point.

Now with a complete understanding the solid research to backup the decisions and subsequent testing scenarios, a series of accessibility and heuristic usability reviews set a base line for the final round of audience evaluations.

The final outcome was a very specific direction in the scope of the audience use with a clear direction for areas of improvement on the site with an overall clarity of the audience requirements.

Processes and Techniques Used

• Strategic Workshop
• Web Analytics
• Persona Development
• Audience Interviews
• User Journey Generation
• Accessibility Audit
• Heuristic Usability Review
• Usability Testing
• User Experience Analysis

The Genetic Support Council of WA (GSCWA) approached our Principal, Gary Barber, a while back with a concern. They were considering a redesign of their existing website, and  they didn’t want to end up with another inaccessible unusable site.

They needed to engage a web design agency that would deliver what they required, and not just shoe horn them into a standard solution.  The concern was even if the right agency was found, their large and diverse audience with  genetic conditions would be forgotten in the design and development process. Pushed aside as too hard to design for.

Client:

Genetic Support Council of WA

Industry:

Not for Profit / Education

Project Focus:

Accessibility, Usability, Web Strategy

This is where we stepped in to fill the gap as the avocate for their users and as specialists to ensure that the site would be as accessible and usable.  Ensuring the special needs of the support groups for genetic conditions that the GSCWA looks after would be taken into account.

Now any good communications project (like a web site) needs to be based on a firm foundation of a strategy and comprehensive knowledge on the users.   As we normally find with such organisations as the  GSCWA,  little of this type of information is ever documented.

To overcome this issue we conducted a series of lean workshops and user research sessions  where we generated a group of core personas and build strategies for the GSCWA.

After conducting this in-depth research it was clear from the  user journeys and scenarios outline by the GSCWA users (and personas) of the function directions required.

The subsequent site was designed and developed  with Bam Creatives using a collaborative iterative approach. Assurance and further user research was conducted via a series of interleaved rounds of usability and accessibility testing (for compliance with WCAG2 A).

Processes and Techniques Used

• Strategic Workshop
• User Research
• Persona Development
• Accessibility Audit
• Usability Testing
• User Experience Analysis

Scitech has a reasonably detailed website but they lacked the clarity of direction and understanding of the site’s audience.

Like many organisations Scitech has been working the web without any clear understanding of their major goals and strategy in this area.

The current site had been operational for a number of years without a major review.   It was working, but not at peak efficiency.

Scitech elected to review their site, instead of starting the usual web design process – throwing out the existing site and redesigning, without a review of the current issues.

A rapid-fire strategic workshop, with specifically designed homework, was conducted to fine-tune the web strategy for Scitech and review their existing audience specifications.

Based on the outcome of this workshop, we conduced an inclusive usability review focusing on their core audience and the customer experience around the key goals of business and the customers requirements.

Client:

Scitech

Industry:

Not for Profit / Education

Project Focus:

Usability, Web Strategy

The final outcome for Scitech was an extensive report on usability and major accessibility issues for their current website. These issues were ranked in order of impact on the overall customer experience.

Armed with this information Scitech was able to correct the issues without the need for a costly redesign.

To often organisations redesign sites without considering what is really required. Just the realigning of the site back to the core goals and requirements of the business and the audience.   Clearly realigning over redesigning of a site will result in a budgetary saving.

Skills Used

• Strategic Workshop
• User Research
• Usability Audit
• User Experience Analysis

This site started from very simple idea; just a seed of an idea that the client had.

An idea to build a career site to promote the records and information management industry and it’s benefits to high school leavers as well as people changing careers in their mid twenties.

This meant we had an audience spread from 15 to 30 to consider.   Not an easy task at all.  We also didn’t have an unlimited budget.

The best way to approach this project was to fall back on a good deal of UX based research of the audience and similar industry career sites.

After an extensive competitive analysis and a limited but substantive series of interviews we had a core vision for the direction of the site.

A detailed content strategy and design direction was presented to the client.

Client:

RIM Professionals Australasia

Industry:

Professional Association

Project Focus:

User Experience and minor Web Design elements

Implementation of the vision did have to take on a few resource and volunteer availability issues, but in the main the core of the vision still remains to present a simple easy to use site.

Many of the features and details used in this site, would not have been possible, if there had not been a component of research and testing with the audience throughout its development.

The final site was rolled out on a WordPress base, with CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery components with the visual design being distinctive but inline with the RIM Professionals Australia current branding and promotional material.

Skills Used

• User Research
• Comparative Analysis
• Preliminarily Screen Design (Wireframing)
• Rapid Prototyping
• Information Architecture
• User Testing
• Visual Design
• Site design implementation
• Project Management
• Site development

Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) approached us with a web site in the final stages of development.

At this point in time the EPA had a reasonable investment in the new web site.  As one would expect, this was not without some reasonable level of expectation that the site would meet all the level of it’s requirements of the EPA, their stakeholders and customers.

We were commissioned to conduct a resource efficient and timely review of the upcoming site. We focused beyond the expert stakeholders of the EPA, into their general customer base.  Looking at the usability and overall customer experience revolving around a number of goal based scenarios.

Client:

Environmental Protection Authority

Industry:

Government

Project Focus:

Usability

The outcome of this review was a report outlining a number of usability issues that reflected on the customer experience  using the new web site.  These issues were outlined in terms of impact of severity and budgetary estimates to overcome.

This type of project is an excellent example of where a timely customer experience and  usability review of a web site can leverage a major benefit in terms of correcting issues before the site is launched.

Skills Used

• User Research
• Usability Audit
• User Experience Analysis

Please note radharc was not responsible for the overall visual or interactive design of the forth coming Environmental Protection Authority web site. We solely were commissioned to assist with usability aspects of the web site.

The Norgifieds is an interesting project as it not generally the type of site that people think they would need an information architect for.    Norgifieds is an online classified site, that works on the principles of keeping it’s design and interface very simple. To often in this market space online classifieds become bloated unusable sites almost from the outset.  Not so with Norgifieds, it was designed from the outset to be simple and easy to use.

Client:

Norg Media

Industry:

Media

Project Focus:

Information Architecture

We were called in on this project to build and reduce the classifieds category list.   This involved researching the proposed category lists with the site’s audience and then collating, refining and finally re-evaluation of the categories by the site’s audience.  The final result was a reduced category list, from well over a 100 items down to the core 13 that you can now see. All this was supported by testing and confirmation from the site’s audience.

Best part was via using various tools and rapid design techniques we were able to achieve this within a limited budget.  The same methods and techniques could be applied to say an e-commerce site, or small government agency.

Skills Used

• User Research
• Content Audit
• Card Sort
• Tree Analysis and Testing
• Content Map
• Preliminarily Screen Design (Wireframing)

Please note radharc was not responsible for the final interactive design and look of the Norgifieds web site. We solely were commissioned to assist with information architecture aspects of the web site.

Options21 are share and options trading education specialists;  they have a  unique aspect to their business in that it is totally online.  Every aspect of their business reflects a very modern viewpoint of the information age. They have embraced and have taken into account the dramatic cost savings of operating their business online from accounts, crm and service delivery.  This has allowed them to increase their  customer service delivery to a highly personalised level.

This site presented for Options21 a complete change in procedural and marketing direction,  with the introduction of specialised news delivery services based on email and subscription services.   It also presented the opportunity to build and leverage off the common knowledge base of their online community and build a resource base that places them in good stead to become market leaders.

Client:

Options21

Industry:

Education

Project Focus:

User Experience, Web Design

The Options21 web site is based around a common open source simple content management platform. This allows their remotely distributed team to easily update, create or mange content, on the site, as required from anywhere.   Of note is the use of specialised techniques and tools to direction clients and filter their outcome into a qualified list of contacts.

Skills Used

• Information architecture development
• Navigational flow design
• Screen design (Wireframing)
• Visual design
• Site design implementation
• Site development
• Project management
• Web marketing consultation

West Coast Tafe approached us with a series of issues relating to placement of the content for their upcoming new web site, after some discussion the scope was also extended to a development of the navigational framework.   The major requirement for the site was for the relevant information on the college and its schools to be findable by current and prospect students.  All this within a limited budget and time frame.

Client:

West Coast Tafe

Industry:

Education

Project Focus:

Information Architecture

The timeline for the project was extremely tight, with no room to move at all. however  we were able to conduct preliminary design research, audit of the content, proposed content structure and a recommended navigational schema, all confirmed via testing with their respective audience. This allowed for the delivery of an base information architecture, on time, on budget.

Skills Used

• User Research
• Content Audit
• Card Sort
• Tree Analysis and Testing
• Content Map
• Navigation Flow
• Preliminarily Screen Design (Wireframing)

Please note radharc was not responsible for the final interactive design and look of the West Coast Tafe web site. We solely were commissioned to assist with information architecture aspects of the web site.

The previous  Challenger Institute of Technology (formally Challenger TAFE) web site was couched in a legacy web site. With a site structure and navigation that was making it impossible for even the incumbent staff to find any information concerned, let alone the audience.

We knew time was short, so looking into our bag of designer tricks, we decide to use a rapid design and development process.

Client:

Challenger Institute of Technology

Industry:

Education

Project Focus:

Information Architecture

Hence  we were able to deliver design research, an audit of the content, a recommended content structure and navigational schema, all as you would expect confirmed via testing with their respective audience. We also produced an interactive prototype for the design structure and detailed design structure specifications.

As is our passion we also consulted on various issues relating to usability and accessibility in various related web services that Challenger Institute of Technology was using at the time.

All this combined for the delivery of a complete detailed web site plan that was subsequently used by the separate but ever-talented design and implementation teams.

Skills Used

• User Research
• Content Audit
• Card Sort
• Tree Analysis and Testing
• Content Map
• Usability Testing
• Prototype Design
• Navigation Flow
• Screen Design (Wireframing)
• Design Consulting
• Usability Consulting
• Accessibility Consulting

Please note radharc was not responsible for the final interactive design and look of the Challenger Institute of Technology web site. We solely were commissioned to assist with information architecture aspects of the web site. The design was produced by a third party.