Client Problem

A Government Department required development of a web portal for an international initiative for health professionals.

Shortages of Australian trained health professionals nationwide created an urgent need for increased numbers of qualified overseas trained medical personnel. However, to gain entry to the medical profession in Australia, overseas medical personnel had to navigate a maze of complex bureaucracy spanning multiple government departments and industry bodies.

The Department engaged SMS to develop the information architecture for a web portal, the objective being to knit together all the rules and regulations into a ‘one stop shop’ for both overseas trained medical personnel and medical practices employing the candidates. The portal also had to sell Australia as a location of choice to attract the best quality candidates and inform those inadequately qualified so that they would ‘auto disqualify’ themselves.

SMS Approach

SMS interviewed a range of stakeholders, including newly arrived medical personnel, employers, medical recruiters and key industry bodies. This information was synthesised into a comprehensive information structure that ensured target audiences would find the site both informative and easy to use. Special care was taken to make the site comprehensible to those for whom English is a second language.

Since interviewing web portal users in their homelands was not feasible, SMS did the next best thing: interviewed newly arrived health professionals. The resulting research was incorporated into design considerations and consensus on approach was gained through discussion with stakeholders. The approach used the Garrett model as a framework and drew heavily on target audience research undertaken for the project. Particular attention was given to developing a user-centred information structure for highly complex subject matter, defining success metrics and undertaking all necessary initial benchmarking, and achieving high levels of usability and accessibility.

Recommendation

SMS delivered a report detailing user requirements and a detailed information architecture solution.

In addition to specifying the user requirements of the portal, SMS defined a detailed information architecture solution aimed at satisfying those requirements.

What's more, because the SMS team included a professional web copywriter and graphic designer, we were able to define a consistent, usable and professional look and feel for the web portal, and to provide expert guidelines for search engine optimisation.

An in-house team from the Department developed the actual web portal using the SMS copy, graphics and features.

Outcome

The web portal has attracted substantial visitor traffic.

The SMS information architecture was accepted by departmental management without amendment. The features, functions, interactions and designs were all endorsed by the project’s steering committee.

Since launch, the site has exceeded expectations, attracting substantial visitor traffic – in fact, the Department has since closed down its international call centre as redundant.

This site further represents a shared understanding amongst the agencies involved of the concept of user-oriented web service provision.