Toast Creative recently won Gold in the Sydney Design Awards 2017 in the Service – Government category for its work transforming the experience for jurors across Australia. Here’s how it achieved the accolade.

Overview

Toast Creative provided design direction in the development of a browser-based application for jurors and potential jurors. This was developed with a mobile-first philosophy, and through responsive design, the application optimises effectively for all screen sizes from mobiles, tablets through to laptops and desktop computers. Toast worked collaboratively with Gerry Gaffney, who led the implementation of the user experience (UX) effectively through a user-centred strategy.

Project commissioner

Department of Justice

Project creator

Toast Creative

Team

Client: Catherine Delia, JMS project sponsor; Julian Huxham, JMS project director (NSW), Department of Justice; Xabi Errotabehere, front-end lead, Department of Justice and Attorney General; Caragh Lyons, solution architect, Department of Justice; Gerry Gaffney, UX lead (information and design)

Agency: Nick Sammut, managing director; Ross Davison, strategy director; Gary Walmsley, print designer; Ramiro Rey, branding designer; Luke Chapman, interface designer.

Project brief

JMS, or Juror, replaces the 20-year-old jury roll system (JRS). The purpose of Juror was to dramatically improve the jury service providing efficiencies throughout the process for both jurors and government. The new mobile interface needed to support the journey of the juror by providing a more simple, intuitive and straightforward experience, ultimately saving time for those selected.

Project innovation/ need

After receiving the traditional, cold postal notification, those selected need to receive a warm experience online. For a potentially intimidating and overwhelming process, Toast created the design for the online portal.

Design challenge

Public perception of being unwillingly dragged into tedious sessions of dreary case presentations amongst hours of sitting around needed to be creatively overcome whilst maintaining a sense of authority and responsibility.

Our strategy led us to develop a concept that portrayed a sense of pride and civic duty gained from participation in NSW Jury Service. The three verbs, ‘Observe, Listen, Decide’, work hand-in-hand with the imagery of real people from throughout NSW to portray a sense of ownership and accountability.

User experience

UX profiling through a series of wireframing stages ensured that the website’s users were nurtured through the key information to digest. This nurturing was designed so that being a juror changed to a process of being warmly educated on how to deliver their civic duty with pride.