To support businesses to recover from the impact of the COVID pandemic the NSW Government has announced a series of incentives in the form of vouchers and rebates to support small business. These transaction based programs are part of the Ministers of DSC’s lighthouse projects. These programs are delivered under tight deadlines subjected to significant media scrutiny.

Case study: Small Business Rebate Scheme

The NSW Government announced a $1500 rebate on government fees and charges to small business. Businesses can use the $1500 rebate scheme to offset the cost of eligible NSW and local government fees and charges. Businesses can claim the rebate through their SNSW MyBusiness account, upon submitting proof of payment of any of the applicable licence fees and charges. 

Our process

I was the lead designer on the Small Business Rebate scheme, with a Content Designer, PO and three developer pairs. I coordinated UX activities and delivery timelines (with PO) and documented all artefacts on Confluence.

We kicked off the discovery phase supported by a CX designer. We recruited 6 participants from the Service for Business database. The participants were from different industries; 3 x business owners and/or their 3 x bookkeepers.

We wanted to understand how -

• businesses manage their government payments,

• how businesses manage their rebates (if they participated in any programs/schemes)

• test our proposed solution, focussing on claiming, tracking and managing rebates

Timeframe

WEEK 1 - 2: Research, Usability Testing, Synthesis

Due to time constraints we decided to run an informal combination of an interview supported by a usability session.

ARTEFACTS

• Learning goals

• Moderator guides

• Flow and Prototype

• Recruit, book and interview participants

• Research Report

We conducted 6 online interviews using Teams and Miro. Various sessions were scheduled to report back to stakeholders from ‘Treasury’ as well as all the teams across the different platforms involved in the roll-out of the program. There was a facilitator and a notetaker, PO’s and developers were encourage to attend these sessions as silent observers. We scheduled synthesis session immediately after interviews to spread the workload. A research report was created as part of our feedback to business stakeholders.

WEEK 3 - 5: Walkthroughs, design critique, story mapping and iteration planning meetings (IPM)

The team participated in several walkthroughs, story mapping sessions and a design critique. We set up various team sessions with PO’s and developers discussing constraints, customer feedback and identifying blockers from other teams and agencies. Based on this feedback I presented an ‘ideal’ user experience. Due to time constraints we had to modify the design to support a MVO release . Once everyone was in agreement on the final product, PO’s started created stories in Pivotal Tracker. On commencement of our first IPM we followed an iterative process, designers continuously implementing feedback and developers pushing code two or three times a week.

WEEK 6: Roll-out

A week before going live, I set up a team meeting with the content designer, PO and developers for a real time audit of wireframes vs what was in our UAT environment. We identified and prioritised outstanding UI elements that was a ‘must have’ for release. Post roll-out designers and developers continue to support the program by incrementally incorporating new feedback until the ideal user experience is achieved.

Currently the team support various other programs; Dine and Discover, Small Business Rebate Scheme and Business Finder while we are working on implementing a new voucher program aimed at the hotel industry. This program must go live end of June 2021.