Griffith University climate change case study

Griffith University NCCARF website displayed in a desktop computer

NCCARF CoastAdapt website UX research and design

About NCCARF

The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) works to support decision makers throughout Australia as they prepare for and manage the risks of climate change and sea-level rise.

The objective

Sitback was engaged by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) to conduct a series of user experience research and design activities to ensure the new CoastAdapt website met both the business and user needs.

The challenge

NCCARF had conducted extensive stakeholder and user research prior to our engagement, so it was important to ensure the research conducted in the UX phase complemented and built upon this previous research. Further, the domain is very specialised, so ensuring a good understanding of Climate Change and Adaptation was imperative to the success of the project.

Our process

We carried out an extensive documentation review to identify the business requirements and to familiarize ourselves with the previous research that had been done. We then conducted 5 stakeholder interviews with the project team to identify project goals, expectations, and success measures

Three user workshops were held in Sydney and Melbourne to identify users’ needs, motivations, pain points, mental models, and opportunities. The findings were translated into 3 personas and user journeys, detailing users’ information needs over time.

An information architecture and a set of wireframes across three factors (desktop, tablet, mobile) were produced based on the identified requirements. We worked collaboratively with the NCCARF project team and their internal development team to ensure the proposed layouts and functionalities were achievable within the build time and budget.

The resulting alpha site was tested through 12 usability testing sessions. We produced a Usability Testing Analysis report to document our findings and recommendations. We also prioritised the recommendations in order of importance, assisting the development team to allocate their resources effectively.

The solution

The beta version of the CoastAdapt site was launched on 24th August 2016.

NCCARF website screenshot

The results

The site has been well received by its key stakeholders with over 5000 factsheets and maps being downloaded from the site in its first four weeks of operation.

“There were a lot of positive comments at this end about everything after the meeting closed and we certainly found this to be an incredibly valuable process. Thanks again! Sitback has definitely helped us to make this a far more usable product!”

Web Developer, Griffith NCCARF

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