Climate projections are our best source of information to plan for our future and are part of the NSW Government’s response to climate change. Biotext worked with the NSW Government to create a new section of the AdaptNSW website to publish information about climate projections for the state, including how projections are modelled and how they can and should be used to inform decision making.
We identified key users of climate projections, planned an intuitive information architecture for the new web pages, and wrote and edited the content. The pages are published on AdaptNSW as the new home of information about the NSW and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project.
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Biotext was selected to support the NSW Government’s delivery of a suite of communication products that raise awareness of regional climate projections across the state. They approached the task with professionalism and sophisticated expertise. The team was thorough in their delivery of each of the project milestones, and maintained open and proactive communications to ensure the work stayed on track throughout the project.
Our role
- Business analysis
- User research
- Information architecture
- Content audit and analysis
- Technical writing and synthesis
- Web writing
- Work with subject matter experts
Our solution
Our discovery phase involved reviewing existing information about the NARCliM project, including technical papers about the modelling methodology and applications of the resulting climate projections. We worked closely with technical experts in the modelling team to understand how NARCliM data are created and their limitations. This was balanced with a user perspective by interviewing a range of end-users who have used NARCliM climate projections to inform their work. From these interviews we developed a series of case studies to be published on the new web pages, and analysed the levels of data expertise to define clear user groups. These groups formed the basis of identifying different information needs and planning effective web content.
Our content development processes focused on dividing topics based on the needs of the different users groups, and layering information to gradually build understanding. We iterated content through various rounds of feedback from technical experts to achieve a level of detail that met the needs of different users without oversimplifying the complexity of the process.
One of our favourite parts was creating a simple framework for the department to understand and communicate to the diverse groups of climate projections users. The framework is used by the department to plan content for different user needs, and is explained on the website to help users find information and resources that meet their level of understanding.
Outcomes
- User personas and insights report
- Case studies of NARCliM data applications
- Structured webpages and text for the NSW climate projections section of the AdaptNSW website