Australian Government Department of Social Services
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.
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.
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
Our role:
Content analysis – we analysed existing websites, as well as other related sites and information, to understand user needs and the support available
Information architecture – we worked with the project teams to develop and refine the 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
Research – we researched content to collect information on available support at national and state levels
Writing and editing – 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