Across Service NSW
I joined Service NSW as a Product Designer in mid-2021, driven by a desire to use my UX and product design skills to help people through the global Covid-19 crisis.
I worked across multiple squads within the Business Bureau team, supporting everything from digital identity to voucher programs for NSW citizens.
Over four years I always had the same goal: make government services easy to use.
Digital Identification
I arrived at Service NSW as a Designer in the Digital Identification squad within the Business Bureau team. Our product was used to establish a digital relationship between a business and a business owner using verifiable credentials. Within this team, I conducted user interviews and research, sketched wireframes, built interactive prototypes, and produced production-ready designs. Working alongside developers and product management, we tweaked and iterated on our business authentication product.
We also discussed authentication methods, data storage, and access models to meet user needs across our organisation’s product ecosystem. I proposed and advocated for a model comprising two internal products: Relationship Authorization Manager (RAM) and a Business Data Store.
At that time, our system only allowed a single user account per business profile; if another user created a profile for the same business, neither user could see the other’s service history or applications, causing confusion. The proposed model would let users establish relationships with one or multiple businesses in the data store and filter which data they could view or edit.
Although this change would require years of work and collaboration across multiple teams, I championed the approach to lay the groundwork for clearer, shared business profiles.
Business Experience
Next, I moved with a fellow designer to the Business Experience squad. We owned the Business Profile dashboard, which pulls together all a business’s services.
During my time in BX I conducted research with and without users, through which we found that the language used in our navigation was causing comprehension issues. I designed a new navigation structure and experience that reduced, expanded, and shuffled it to better align with user expectations.
We had no product manager or engineers, so our designs stayed on paper. To help future work, I documented and archived everything clearly, so others could pick up our work when resources became available.
Business Data Storage Platform
As the Data Storage Platform Squad formed, I helped realign the team around the intended multi-user data model. Some early proposals had drifted toward one-off solutions that would block future integrations; I steered us back to a scalable approach.
I then designed how the new data would integrate across products considering our proposed multi-stage migration plan for existing business profiles.
Progress was necessarily slow with every change required careful coordination. So design output paused while back-end work and migration moved forward.
Relationship Authorization Manager (RAM)
In the RAM Squad, I examined the existing access-management flow and found that the original design rationale had been lost. To rebuild a foundation that could scale, I researched industry standards and settled on a role-based access control (RBAC) framework. This model aligned with both user needs and our organisational requirements, and I documented it to guide future iterations.
Voucher Programs
Finally, I joined the Voucher Programs Squad, shifting to citizen-facing work. I supported the voucher application product from its pre-launch through three separate releases, helping parents apply for sporting, arts, and cultural vouchers for their children. I ran research sessions, iterated on prototypes before each launch, and polished the UI to meet evolving requirements.
Other Contributions
Outside these squads, I drafted the structure for a multi-user activity log, built and maintained Figma component libraries, mentored a trainee designer, ran design-thinking workshops, and created illustrations to help designers add flourish for design presentations.
In Retrospect
Over four years, I learned and accomplished more than I could capture here. Working in government often meant grinding through complexities and blockers that don't exist elsewhere.
Yet despite the pace - sometimes even because of it - I felt the impact of my work every day. The frameworks I built laid foundations for future teams, the design systems I created supported those around me, and the improvements I championed helped others in delivering products that serve real people across NSW.
Please note: The resolution of images have been intentionally reduced to obscure detail.