Symplicit wraps up 2023 with Four Good Design Awards!

Rebekah Nicholas

Gerard Murphy

21/12/2023

5 min read

We are delighted to finish off 2023 with four Good Design Awards across social impact, design research, digital design interface and digital design apps and software. These awards show our success in partnering with our clients to achieve excellent research and design projects across varying industries. More detail about each of our awards can be found below:

Social Impact Award: Co-designing the Practical Driving Test for Diverse Queenslanders. Symplicit and QLD Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Caption: Rebekah Nicholas and Brooke Royston holding Good Design Award Trophies

Remember your driving test? You just got sweaty palms, right? Now imagine what the driving test is like if you’re neurodiverse, culturally or linguistically diverse, deaf, or all of those at once. To help solve this problem, we co-designed the practical driving test experience with people who have diverse needs, including First Nations people, people with disabilities, people who are neurodiverse and those who are culturally and linguistically diverse. Our goal was to co-design alongside TMR (Transport and Main Roads) a more inclusive and accessible practical driving test experience for everyone, regardless of their background or abilities. 

Each touchpoint in the journey has been carefully crafted to ensure customers have a seamless, logical, and cohesive experience. Everything from the TMR website, emails and text reminders, test centre signage and staff, and even first interaction with the driving examiner was co-designed with people with lived experience. This project sets a new standard for government organisations to involve diverse customers in the development and creation of public services. The Good design Awards Jury commented on our submission:

“This project is a great example of thorough engagement and input across the design process as you sought to make the driving test a better, more inclusive and accessible experience for all Queenslanders. The Jury commend the incredible vision of the project and look forward to seeing its impact evolve.” The Good Design Awards Jury

Design Research Award: Designing an inclusive Opal public transport ticketing experience. Symplicit and Transport for NSW.

Caption: Hermann Ruiz and Jet Swain holding Good Design Award Trophies

Transport for NSW (TfNSW) sought to understand the ticketing needs and behaviours of the more than 5 million customers within Greater Sydney who take over 4 million public transport trips daily. This initiative aimed to identify opportunities to reimagine the Opal ticketing network to better support accessible, secure, sustainable, and equitable passenger journeys. The challenge arose as TfNSW, a NSW government agency, needed to ensure that their future ticketing programs would continue to meet the expectations of a Greater Sydney population growing in diversity, with changing needs, priorities and vulnerabilities evolving alongside technology.  

This program developed the Transport Resilience Framework, which visualises dimensions of passenger resilience related to public transport ticketing. The evidence-based tool empowers leaders to make more empathetic and inclusive strategic decisions while designing next-generation ticketing solutions. The Good Design Awards Jury commented on our submission:

“The methodology behind this study is undeniably robust. Congratulations on creating a considered and empathetic approach to solving significant problems with the public transport experience.” The Good Design Awards Jury

Digital Design Interface Award: Dashboard Design for a marketing platform startup. Symplicit and RAAMP.

Caption: Brooke Royston holding Good Design Award Trophies

There are many complex marketing technologies in the world, and not one of them gives instant insights to a CEO or CMO about what is most worth doing next. Our mandate was to deliver a simple, user-friendly visualisation for scores at each of the six ADORE milestones and an overall total. The dashboard had to be self-evident, provide insights over time, and supply executive-level monthly reporting in one PDF download.  

RAMMP turns a snapshot of a business’s marketing metrics into six key moments. The RAMMP dashboard visualises those moments according to performance metrics and shows how to improve each moment. Over time, the RAMMP dashboard helps businesses see how these changes affect their metrics. The Good Design Awards Jury commented on our submission:  

“Both the public website and the application itself have really nice visual coherence, with a smart, calm colour palette, contemporary illustrations and distinctive typography. Overall, RAMMP Dashboards demonstrate intuitive navigation and innovative design-thinking.” The Good Design Awards Jury

Digital Design Apps and Software Award: The New Broker Portal for Commbank. Symplicit and CBA.

Caption: Mae Lu holding a Good Design Award Trophy

Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CommBank) residential loan book services 1.2 million customers and contributes AUD638 billion in annual revenue. In 2023, broker funded loans accounted for 71% of home lending. However, historical market conditions meant that the digital broker platform has seen low investment, leading to a deterioration of user experience and performance. CommBank’s digital product team sought to mitigate this risk and create the country's #1 digital broker proposition.

The first phase (8-weeks in duration) enabled validation of key assumptions, establishment of an intuitive information architecture (IA), and informed the roadmap and product goals for the first release. The delivery phase (18-months duration) was a collaboration between Symplicit, HCLTech and CommBank, who formed cross-functional agile teams responsible for designing and delivering features. 

Broker portal engagement sky-rocketed post-launch, with a 50% increase in monthly active users. The re-designed experience achieved a top rating in user satisfaction from 90% of users surveyed, call centre volumes reduced by 350 calls per day (resulting in AUD 1.5 million in annual savings), and time to access critical loan information reduced from 15-minutes down to mere seconds. The Good Design Awards Jury commented on the submission:  

“The New Broker Portal for CommBank is empowered by a strong design system. From logical interfaces to graceful content groupings, this is an interactive project that offers a direct benefit to its users.”  The Good Design Awards Jury

These awards are a great reflection of the high quality relationships with our clients, our collaborative approach, and our expertise in human centred design and digital delivery. We look forward to celebrating more design awards and continuing to create better experiences and deliver great outcomes with our clients and team next year!

Interested in knowing more? Let's chat