A digital overhaul for Queensland Health’s public-facing website network

Discover how Queensland Health implemented a design system that modernizes digital services, prioritizes user needs and ensures cross-agency efficiency in healthcare information delivery.

Lorna Hegarty 09 Oct 2024

Queensland Health

Queensland Health is the public health system in Queensland, Australia, comprising sixteen statutory Hospital and Health Services, the Department of Health and Queensland Ambulance Service.

Industry

Government

Products

CMS, Search, Data service

The challenge

A fragmented digital landscape

When Stephen Wernicke, Director for Online for Queensland Health, and Luke Jennings, Manager of the Digital Transformation Team, began the website transformation journey in 2020, they faced a vast and fragmented digital landscape.

Queensland Health encompasses 16 different health districts, other statutory authorities and many departmental divisions and initiatives. At the time, there were over 100 websites using varied technologies. This diversity in the tech stack led to inconsistent design architecture, disjointed user experiences, and content management difficulties.

An external audit conducted in 2018 revealed the full extent of the challenge. The lack of standardized systems resulted in numerous difficulties including security risks, resource inefficiencies, and fragmented governance.

Technical inconsistencies

The different website properties within the network were using various website platforms, with some of them on WordPress, Drupal or other CMSs, often without adequate technical support.

“A publisher might have been somebody who came in for a period of time and was quite technical and good with Content Management Systems (CMSs), so they set everything up. But then when they moved on to other challenges and a comms person took it on, they often didn’t know how to manage it or handle issues on it. So if, for example, they installed a new plugin in WordPress and it broke or it got hacked, they didn’t know how to resolve the issue.” – Luke Jennings

This reliance on CMSs led to a number of additional issues, including:

Vulnerability to errors and security risks: Without proper technical oversight, simple actions like installing new plugins could break the site or create security vulnerabilities.
Financial risk: The inconsistent management of these platforms posed financial risks to the department.
Reputation risk: Technical issues and potential security breaches threatened the department's reputation.
Scalability challenges: While WordPress might have been good for quick turnaround projects, it wasn't suitable for managing the majority of the department's digital assets efficiently.
Consolidation difficulties: The disparate nature of these platforms made it challenging to consolidate and streamline the department's digital infrastructure.

The case for an improved user experience

There was a pressing need to consolidate user experiences across different platforms and adopt a more customer-centric approach.

"We needed to understand how the public interacts with Queensland Health. To them, it’s all about the hospitals and a lot of their interactions come through hospitals and health services (HHSs). So, we figured it would be a big mistake to just take a very corporate view of the problem, we needed to focus on the HHSs as a starting point.” – Stephen Wernicke

At a time when many other jurisdictions had adopted design systems, the Queensland government’s existing web standards needed some modernization. A design system is a set of standards, documentation, and reusable components that guide the development of digital experiences for an organization. It ensures consistency in the appearance and functionality of different digital products, creates efficiency across teams and results in a seamless end-user experience.

The absence of this single source of truth for designers and developers became particularly apparent when facing the task of transforming numerous websites. As Luke put it, "Without a design system, the answer is either you can't or you can, but you'll do it poorly and very slowly."

The solution

A collaborative design system

Stephen and Luke leveraged the expertise of partners Folk, a Sydney-based experience design agency, and Squiz to bring their ambitious vision to life. Their team grew to include key experts in content strategy, content design, UX/UI design, web development, and project management.

As part of the collaborative efforts, the team focused on developing a modular and scalable design system.

The goals of the project

The team was determined to create a more efficient, flexible, and user-friendly web management system.

Key goals of the project were to:

Reduce developer dependency: The primary objective was to decrease the organization's reliance on developers for individual websites.
Enhance publisher-friendly functionality: Create a system where publishers could easily configure and manage websites without extensive technical knowledge.
Streamline site configuration: Develop a process for quickly setting up new sites, including site-level metadata, titles, colors, and menus.
Simplify content creation: Enable publishers to create pages and add components easily, resulting in advanced and consistent user experiences.
Maintain design consistency: Ensure that even quickly deployed sites maintain consistent design and functionality.
Balance developer and publisher needs: Strike a balance between pushing developers to create additional functionality and ensuring that the resulting system remains user-friendly for publishers.

Leveraging technology

Squiz technology plays a pivotal role in the updated tech stack, providing a comprehensive foundation into which the team can now test and add other third-party tools.

Included in the core stack is:

Squiz Content Management: This is one of the cornerstone capabilities – providings a flexible and user-friendly interface that allows teams to collaborate seamlessly, ensuring content is both up-to-date and accessible.

Squiz Search: For Queensland Health, Squiz Search creates a responsive and intuitive search experience across their digital platforms. This ensures that users can quickly find the information they need, whether it's health service details, policy documents, or research publications.

Squiz Data Management: Squiz Datastore is a versatile database management tool that supports Queensland Health in efficiently storing and retrieving large volumes of data. Datastore offers a reliable and scalable solution for managing the large volumes of data that Queensland Health deals with daily.

Analytics and user insights: Beyond the Squiz DXP, Queensland Health leverages several tools to gather and analyze user data. Google Analytics and Tag Manager are essential in tracking and understanding how users interact with their digital platforms.

User behavior analysis: Hotjar is another critical tool for Queensland Health. It offers session recording and heat mapping capabilities, allowing the team to see exactly what users are doing on their site.

The results

Improved efficiency and accessibility

As each new HHS website is launched, the team conducts a 90-day review to assess performance. The results are consistently positive, showing significant improvements in site traffic, user experience, and completion rates for user tasks. The new standardized processes have also generated faster production times and reduced the need for frequent developer intervention. Development effort is also reduced, allowing the team to devote resources to content strategy and content design.

Financial savings

Almost all Queensland Health websites are now being built and managed in-house centrally by the Online team as opposed to being briefed out to agencies or given to different teams across the organization. This allows significant savings in development and hosting costs, leaving more money in budgets to spend on frontline healthcare.

Consistent user experience

The consolidation of the various platforms has led to a more consistent and reliable user experience. For example, a patient in the Torres and Cape HHS might need to travel to Cairns HHS for treatment, and also look up information from the Department of Health. A standardized design system ensures a more seamless journey across all of these web properties, with accessibility standards baked in. It’s all part of building greater trust with users.

State-wide adoption

The success of Queensland Health’s website transformation began to resonate beyond its initial scope. Other state agencies started adopting the design system, further extending the benefits of a unified digital approach. This expansion affirmed the efficacy and adaptability of the solutions implemented by the team.

"The world is becoming more digital every single day. Queensland Health is well-placed to make meaningful change in the public-facing web space. We've got the resources, skills and the complexity that needs addressing. It's really gratifying to see the design system approach laddering up to the state government.” – Stephen Wernicke

Future-oriented

The transformation from a fragmented digital presence to a unified, user-centric ecosystem has empowered Queensland Health to better serve its stakeholders. The journey continues, and the design system working with the Squiz platform provides a solid foundation for future innovation. Queensland Health is well-positioned to continue improving its website network in the years to come.

Read more about how other organizations are transforming their digital landscapes. Find our latest case studies and success stories at Squiz Customer Stories.