Transformation
The Australian Computer Society (ACS) plays a pivotal role in connecting global talent with the digital economy, assessing and certifying professionals for future roles. However, with over 30,000 annual applications, 75% of them were unprepared, causing delays and stress.
In 2022, the Australian government aimed to increase skilled migrant intake to meet growing demand. However, a persistent challenge remained: balancing application efficiency with the quality of professionals entering the country.
Guiding this transformative journey as Project Lead in partnership with the Australian Computer Society and Cloudwerx, I designed an experience that maximised application quality and processing efficiency.
As the Project Lead, my responsibilities included defining project objectives, managing timelines, and client relationships. Additionally, I led the strategy, research, and design efforts.
Desktop
Application experience
2022-2023
ACS faced a significant issue with 30,000 annual applications, 75% of which were unprepared for assessment, resulting in unsuitable outcomes and delays. This situation had various negative consequences:
- Overloaded applicants faced complex criteria, causing confusion.
- 75% of applications were stuck in processing due to insufficient information.
- Wait times ranged from 7 weeks to 5 months, causing mental distress.
- Assessors spent time on manual tasks that could have been focused on quality assessment.
As a flagship service and commercial pillar of ACS, as well as a critical piece of Australia’s economic puzzle, the service and experience was in need of a rethink and redesign.
Our journey to transformation involved several key stages:
As we redesigned the front-end experience, parallel developments in digital infrastructure and process mapping were occurring. This required daily design iterations to align everything effectively.
Tailoring the application experience for three distinct user groups (applicants, applicants with agents, and agents) with varying needs and journeys proved challenging but necessary.
For applicants: We've crafted a user-friendly journey, ensuring applicants feel supported for faster and fairer outcomes.
For ACS Assessors: We streamlined workflows for efficient high-value tasks and better-informed decisions.
For the Organisation: Our work established ACS as a provider of exceptional service, driving positive change in the tech sector
Breakdown
the overview? keep reading!
We conducted a comprehensive analysis, reviewing the skills assessment journey map and interviewing both external users and internal assessors. This deep dive allowed us to identify pain points, opportunities, and critical areas for the future vision.
We identified distinct user groups to gain insights into their unique needs and journeys, enabling us to craft tailored experiences for each individual.
These sessions centered on ideating on actionable "how-to" statements laying the foundation for the concepts. Post-workshop, we transformed these insights into mid-fidelity sketches, garnering strong business support for our design direction to be further developed.
How can we support applicants in submitting "assessment-ready" applications from the start?
How can we improve transparency in the assessment process to boost applicant confidence?
How can we enhance the assessment interface to empower assessors to focus on high-priority tasks?
How can we streamline the assessment process for improved efficiency?
Our approach shifted from theory to practical experimentation, progressing swiftly to future-state design. Concepts were translated into tangible representations and rigorously tested in real-world scenarios.
Over six months period we conducted 40 rounds of usability testing. Each round focusing on different sections of the application experience, capturing continuous iterations that aligned with evolving processes and concept refinement.
The designed application experience is now staged and under development and will be live at the end of 2023.