Transforming online access to legal help for artists and creatives across Australia
Project: Digital transformation (Stage 1)
Partner organisations: Arts Law Centre of Australia and Code for Australia
Role: UX Designer
Date: August 2021 – December 2021 (4.5 months)
Partner organisations: Arts Law Centre of Australia and Code for Australia
Role: UX Designer
Date: August 2021 – December 2021 (4.5 months)
Image of Arts Law home page in August (L) and image of the homepage in December (R)
Project background
Arts Law is Australia’s independent national community legal centre for the arts, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.
They provide free or low cost specialised legal advice, education and resources to Australian artists and arts organisations across all art forms, on a wide range of arts related legal and business matters. Arts Law’s Artists in the Black program delivers targeted services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists nationally.
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Donna Robinson (Arts Law lawyer) with artists screen printing in studio at Yarrabah art centre. Photo by Bernie Singleton 2021 on the Arts Law website ︎︎︎
Our team at Code for Australia partnered with Arts Law to deliver a strategic roadmap and tech recommendations along with an MVP website showcasing these solutions with a focus on helping their clients find information easily.
Donna Robinson (Arts Law lawyer) with artists screen printing in studio at Yarrabah art centre. Photo by Bernie Singleton 2021 on the Arts Law website ︎︎︎
Our team at Code for Australia partnered with Arts Law to deliver a strategic roadmap and tech recommendations along with an MVP website showcasing these solutions with a focus on helping their clients find information easily.
Strategy phase
Our team began this project by immersing ourselves in the opportunity space of the Arts Law digital ecosystem. We started by building a service blueprint of the current Arts Law experience and filled in the gaps by conducing research with artists, staff and investigating the systems in place.
We presented our findings at a staff prioritisation workshop where we selected key solutions to build during our engagement that were high impact and feasible to deliver with the short engagement.
High impact solutions chosen:
We presented our findings at a staff prioritisation workshop where we selected key solutions to build during our engagement that were high impact and feasible to deliver with the short engagement.
High impact solutions chosen:
- Guided pathways to improve navigability of the wide-range of resources available online
- Redesign of the Legal Query Form
- Menu restructure
- Replacement of search bar
- MVP redesign and restructure of homepage
Original Legal Query form to apply for Arts Law services (L) Guided pathways implemented with a mobile-first approach (R)
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The LQF is the form that manages intake of clients online, however, last year only 2,758 were able to find the page with a 58.2% bounce rate.
Google analyticsLegal query form - my first impression is that it is pretty daunting. Having both an overview but being guided is preferable.
Interview with artistOriginal Info Hub used to find information on the website (L) Guided pathways implemented with a mobile-first approach (R)
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Artists don’t know what search terms to use or what legal words to use.
Arts Law staff memberThe Info Hub search results are too numberous and overwhelming. The results are also mismatched with the search query.
Interview with artistDelivery phase
Our team had to ensure that these solutions could be implemented into the existing Wordpress site which was supported by Salesforce in the backend. Due to the 1000+ resources available and recorded client cases, we were not able to use imporoved technology at this phase which meant that all solutions needed to be able to be retro-fitted and supported by the existing systems.
Project deliverables:
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Digital content and style guide
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Service blueprint
Solutions that we were infeasiable to be built for this engagement where still prototyped as they were deemed high-impact. One key design concept that was handed over for development at a later date was the redesign of the Artists in the Black homepage.
Through interviews with Indigenous creatives and subject matter experts we learnt that “artists are without a doubt missing out on services” and it was unanimously unclear what was being offered.
One Aboriginal artist mentioned that “we’ve always been taught by sight - use visuals or videos” and that younger people often help Elders with technology.
As a result, the proposed website favours visuals embedded in buttons with an animated video explaining the services available with multiple language options.
Project deliverables:
- Launch of a “Minimum Viable Product” solution during the engagement
- Ongoing iteration in response to user testing and feedback
- Documentation of developed solutions for handover to Arts Law and supporting resources
- Execution of suitable support and maintenance plan for the ongoing management of the developed solutions
- The final deliverable will be the final iteration of the Arts Law website
Digital content and style guide
Service blueprint
Solutions that we were infeasiable to be built for this engagement where still prototyped as they were deemed high-impact. One key design concept that was handed over for development at a later date was the redesign of the Artists in the Black homepage.
Through interviews with Indigenous creatives and subject matter experts we learnt that “artists are without a doubt missing out on services” and it was unanimously unclear what was being offered.
One Aboriginal artist mentioned that “we’ve always been taught by sight - use visuals or videos” and that younger people often help Elders with technology.
As a result, the proposed website favours visuals embedded in buttons with an animated video explaining the services available with multiple language options.
Concept for redesign of Artists in the Black homepage
Project team
Cédric Quenette, Developer
Kate Currie, Developer
Marya Bautista, UX Designer
Kate Currie, Developer
Marya Bautista, UX Designer