Australasian Health Facility Guidelines (AusHFG) case study

By Carl Brown

AusHFG government website redesign - Photo of the inside of an operating room in a hospital.

Optimising access to vital health facilities information

About AusHFG

The Australasian Health Facility Guidelines (AusHFG) represent a significant body of freely available resources for Australian and New Zealand public health infrastructure projects. This central resource for all government and non-government bodies synthesises information across the wide spectrum of models of care, providing clarity and a common understanding of the language and terminology used. The resources are a vital starting point for design and save designers, managers, engineers and architects hundreds of hours of effort.

The objective

AusHFG’s existing website was considered outdated and lacked the desired functionality to support their workflows. In addition, it wasn’t compatible with mobile devices and required costly updates to maintain. AusHFG needed to create a more sustainable, user-friendly website solution that would act as the place of publication and sharing of information as well as provide a user-friendly interface for the management and update of the content.

Photo over the shoulder of a man using a laptop on top of a white desk. The AusHFG website is visible on the screen. The man has short dark hair and is wearing a pale blue t-shirt and dark blue glasses.

Project overview

AusHFG engaged Sitback to help improve their existing website which was rated by their user’s as ‘average’ based on the following criteria;

Meets my needs.
Layout and design.
Ease of use.

The existing website was considered outdated and lacked the desired functionality to support the client’s workflows. In addition, it wasn’t compatible with mobile devices and required costly updates to maintain. The client was seeking a more sustainable, user-friendly web-based solution that would act as the place of publication and sharing of AusHFG information as well as provide a user-friendly interface for the management and update of the content. Specifically:

Better presentation and easier navigation of content across devices.
More advanced search capability.
The ability to support additional file types e.g. Revit files.
The ability to provide Member log-in to facilitate secure information sharing.
Ability to update and publish documents without having to rely on external expertise.
Secure Member’s Area.

“I don’t think I’m the easiest client in the world – I’m usually preoccupied with my work with clinicians and infrastructure stakeholders!

I’m really grateful that Lorna and Sitback take the pressure off me with their support. They are really proactive, have great ideas and have the site looking fantastic!”

Sharon Connolly

A/AHIA Secretariat

Our approach

Sitback delivered the project over a series of phases with the UX team undertaking a range of activities to explore business drivers and user needs and wants in depth:

Documentation Review
Stakeholder Interviews
User Workshops
User Experience Design

The insights from the research were used to define a new information architecture and UI design (desktop, tablet and mobile wireframes were produced) focused on maintaining the flat structure that users preferred and developing a clearly labelled navigation structure that included Quick Links to popular items. The homepage provides a clear separation between ‘News’ and ‘Items under review’ to allow users to see at a glance what has changed. A global toolbar was introduced to increase the usability of key functions e.g. review and feedback forms.

As part of the technical scoping Sitback conducted a technical interview with the key 3rd party supplier to identify integration options and document storage approaches.

The design phase followed with the wireframes being used as the basis of the creative application. A web style guide was produced to inform the roll-out of the design across all templates.

A technical planning phase ensured the ‘how’ and ‘what’ being delivered were clearly documented and approved prior to the development phase kicking off, building out the website using the Drupal Content Management System. The build lasted 4 months and progressed smoothly with the client and the UX team having continual access to the project.

The project successfully went live and the transition from project to support was seamless. AusHFG continues to have improvements and enhancements made through our Support & Optimisation team.

Project highlights

User workshops

Stakeholder interviews

Wireframe prototypes

Information architecture

Web style guide

Drupal CMS development

Key project outcomes

The new responsive website meets the key requirements identified during the UX phase. Tracking on the website has shown It performs well across all devices with session durations of 15 minutes or more, as visitors consume the available content.

The website now supports multiple content formats including widely used formats such as PDF, XLS, and the very client-specific REVIT file. Access to the key documents from the homepage, as well as in-page cross-linking between document types, has improved the speed at which users can find their information.

The project introduced a robust site search allowing users to easily find information or documents by using partial and exact word matches. Documents are boosted in the rankings to improve findability. The search results page contains filters to allow users to further refine the results generated; the filters also indicate how many results per filter are available. Users can then sort the results by relevance, date, document code, etc. An automated scheduled task ensures that new content added to the website is made available to the search within 5 minutes.

The resources available on the website are continually being reviewed and updated by AusHFG but building contractors and architects want continued access to older versions for existing projects still in progress. A highly intuitive workflow process was built to support revisioning and archiving requirements.

The website is integrated with Mailchimp and data entered via one of the three website forms is securely pushed to the 3rd party site using the available web services. The forms facilitate a subscription service and the client’s document feedback process.

The new Member’s area is a very popular area of the website which allows the sharing of minutes, articles, reports and documents of interest. Content is tagged and a blog-specific search and filters allow members to easily find what they’re looking for. To make it as scalable as possible, the Drupal CMS administrators have full control over the content tags and filters.

Does your business need an easy-to-use, intuitive website to store and organise important information?

Our psychology-led approach to User Experience Design will ensure that your customers can find the information they need quickly and easily, no matter what device they choose to use to access it. Get in touch today to find out how we can help!