Simplified Trade System Implementation Taskforce (Austrade)
Experience Designer / Sep 2021 - Mar 2022
Importing and exporting goods can involve a surprising number of steps, systems and government agencies. I joined Tobias’s work with the Simplified Trade System Taskforce to help make that complexity visible and understand how the experience could be improved for Australian businesses.
ChallengeThe taskforce needed a clearer picture of the end-to-end trade journey, not just individual government services. Without that shared view, it was difficult for agencies to see where businesses were getting caught up or where changes could have the greatest impact.
Approach
I helped turn research and stakeholder input into visual artefacts that people could actually use to understand the problem.
Working alongside the research and design team, I assisted with user research, co-design workshops, stakeholder engagement and collaboration across government agencies. I also mapped user flows and produced service blueprint materials to connect the different steps, touchpoints and behind-the-scenes processes involved in trading across borders.
A big part of my contribution was visualising the current-state journey in a way that made sense to people outside the immediate research team. This resulted in importing and exporting journey maps that were almost ten metres long when printed, bringing together a complex web of interactions in one place.
These weren't just documentation exercises. They helped stakeholders see the experience from a business's perspective, discuss pain points together and identify opportunities that crossed agency boundaries.
OutcomeThe research engaged 159 participants across 65 Australian businesses and five government agencies. The journey maps helped establish a shared understanding of the current trade experience and highlighted opportunities for coordinated reform. One of the most useful things designers can do is make a complicated problem tangible. When people can see the whole experience in front of them, it's much easier to have conversations about what can and needs to change.
The project was awarded a 2022 Good Design Award for Design Research ↗.
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