Client: New Zealand Qualifications Authority

About them: NZQA plays a key role in the education sector for the NZ government. They're in charge of managing the NZ Qualifications Framework, and administering the secondary school assessment system, among other things.
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Work completed: NZQA desperately needs a new website – and that's in the works. In the meantime, I was tasked with restructuring and rewriting a key section as a test case: the Qualifications Recognition Service (QRS).

Result: Feedback from the QRS team included:
  • Staff morale increased, with the majority of applications to the team now containing the right information.
  • Complaints within the team have reduced.
  • Applications have gone from 1 in 2 having incorrect/missing documentation with it to 1 in 5 - for the first time in approximately 3 years the scanning of applications in up-to-date.
QRS home before pic
BEFORE

Website audit

For larger or trickier jobs, I usually start by doing an audit of the current website. This means looking at the website page design, the IA, the content and the tone of voice, and forming a list of questions and suggestions to take back to the client.

Interviews & workshops

Often the people working in a business have a lot of great information in their head, but just need help drawing it out. I provided members of the QRS team with content briefs to fill out, then followed up with Skype workshops to fully understand their needs.

Sitemapping & IA

Originally hired to do a simple tone tidy and rewrite, I soon realised that the section actually needed to be completely restructured, I presented my case with the help of proposed new sitemaps, and away we went.

Website copy

This section sets the tone - literally - for the rest of the website upgrade. I made the language much more user friendly and accessible, account for readers who don't have English as a first language.

Form copy

Service design, such as forms, is a whole thing in itself. I worked with NZQA's expert to suggest improvements to the QRS section's important application forms.

Infographics & UX

Whenever I review existing copy, one of the things I’m looking for is if we can turn any of the copy into a visual, or add a visual to support the copy. This can include anything from infographics to page and copy design suggestions.