Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Interaction Designer / Sep 2021 - Jun 2025
How do you make complex agricultural export regulations easier for government staff to manage? I spent four years working with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as an Interaction Designer, helping turn paper-based compliance processes into practical digital staff tools.
ChallengeDepartment staff relied on a mix of paper forms, legacy systems and manual processes to capture compliance information. I needed to help the team understand how people actually worked before we could design something better.
Approach
I started by mapping service blueprints and user journeys with the team, helping us understand existing workflows and where digital tools could make a difference.
From there, I led interaction design activities across a compliance capture tool and a compliance data dashboard. I sketched concepts, created low-fidelity wireframes and interactive prototypes, and worked directly with department staff in discovery workshops and concept testing.
I translated the feedback into high-fidelity UI designs, handed them over to developers and stayed involved throughout implementation and ongoing maintenance. This included reworking paper forms into connected digital workflows, from user registration through to compliance data capture.
As the work expanded into additional commodities and regulatory areas, I helped adapt and extend the designs. I also helped shape the department's design system through component and pattern development, testing and sharing usability findings with the wider design community. The work of the Agriculture Design System team was later recognised with a 2026 Good Design Award for Digital Interface ↗.
Outcome
Our work helped modernise compliance processes, giving staff better tools for capturing and using regulatory data. Following a successful proof of concept, the approach was extended into additional areas.
One particularly encouraging result was that usage of the Veterinary Consignment Inspections tool increased to nearly 100% after workflow improvements informed by user feedback, a task that previously had high falloff rates and low data quality. Understanding how people work in the real world, then making the digital experience fit that reality is where good interaction design starts.
The project was awarded a 2023 Good Design Award for Public Sector Services ↗.
Further reading at Tobias Australia ↗.
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