Design
PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST Anna Lee-Renwick, Director, hatchd
USER-CENTRED DESIGN IS VITAL TO INSPIRING INNOVATION WITHIN GOVERNMENT PROJECTS.
T
he ‘innovation’ buzzword
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has been embraced by government bodies across the world. However, as the hype around major announcements such as the federal government’s $19 million business and innovation initiative begins to soften, the measurability and tangible outcomes
of innovation investments are coming
stakes are somewhat higher. Complex
under scrutiny. Mistakes have been made — consider last year’s online Census disaster or NSW’s learning management and business reform issues. While government is by no means the only sector prone to expensive IT implementation or delivery errors, the
procurement processes mean that most projects are behind before they’ve even begun, and transparency about taxpayers’ dollars spend means that failures make the news. But how do you ensure genuine innovation is being fostered instead of costly, high-risk technology investments? In our experience, innovation isn’t a job title or a department. It has to be embedded as a cultural value across the organisation — particularly in government. Technology should meet the needs of the users, not the needs of the procurement department. It has to be user-centred. In our work with various government departments across Australia, the end user has always been the priority and as such we’ve been able to innovate freely. TRANSPORTING THE COMMUNITY The Western Australia Public Transport Authority (PTA) approached us with a unique problem. Similar to an airport, its new $217m Perth Busport features a state-of-the-art dynamic stand management system that allocates buses to different stands every minute.
18 | GOVTECH REVIEW Q3 2017
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