Building effective services for some of the most vulnerable in our community is only one half of the equation. It is also important that people can find the information and support they need.
Biotext provides content strategy, design and development for health website and web content to meet user needs, based on a deep understanding of health content and communications.
Our role:
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Partnerships and projects include:
Carer Gateway and Disability Gateway, Australian Government Department of Social Services
The Carer Gateway and Disability Gateway were developed to bring together the wealth of information about the support and services available to help carers and people with disability in all areas of life – from finance to transport, health, and everyday living. Biotext were the content leads and writers for the projects, working in a multidisciplinary team at the Australian Government Department of Social Services that included policy, user-testing, web development, graphic design, writing and editing, accessibility, and publishing experts.
We analysed existing websites, as well as other related sites and information, to understand user needs and the support available at national and state levels. We worked with the project teams to develop and refine the information architecture (IA) to ensure that carers could find the information they needed – for example, the Carer Gateway website was developed with extensive testing by 80 carers across 7 iterations. We wrote all content for the sites, drawing on both existing content and new research; we made the information as clear as possible, using a direct, friendly conversational style to develop actionable content.
The sites and content were designed to ensure that information is easy to find and understand, with clear pathways to services and highest priority information. The Carer Gateway website was shortlisted for the Clear Communication Awards and the Australian Government Digital Awards.
You’ve just gone way beyond, it’s like you’ve rolled the red carpet out for carers. I love it.
Carer during final user testing
Hearing Services Program, Hearing Services Office
Recognising that their current website was outdated and difficult to navigate, in 2020 the Hearing Services Office (HSO) at the Department of Health was looking to improve the website and processes for publishing content. Biotext developed a content strategy and design for the HSO, which included user research in the form of interviews with stakeholders (internal and external), a website survey and analytics. Using this information, Biotext conducted a card sorting exercise to inform the new IA and validated it with tree testing. Finally, Biotext conducted usability testing using wireframes of the new Hearing Services Program as well as of the health.gov.au platform more generally.
Biotext made recommendations to improve the new website and internal processes. We also delivered a content audit and plan, a writing guide and many other resources that the HSO can draw on to guide the development of their future website.
Health.gov.au, Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care
Biotext was involved in the major redevelopment of the health.gov.au website in 2019, working on content analysis, information architecture and content writing. Throughout the project, we worked as part of a multidisciplinary team that included user experience specialists, web designers, the health.gov.au digital communications and IT units, and subject matter experts. We collaborated closely with departmental staff to analyse the content of a range of topics in the current site, and to create new content to align with the new information architecture and content models and meet readability and accessibility standards. We also worked closely with user experience specialists to map user journeys and ensure the new content meets expectations for both consumers and health professionals.