Project Overview
No one wants to admit they are getting old and can't do the things they used to. So looking into aged care is something that most people avoid until it's too late. The challenge for this project was to create a deeply empathetic, self-paced and empowering experience that enabled older Australians and their families to take those first steps earlier.
Liquid, working with the Department of Health and Aged Care, created the award-winning My Aged Care website in 2018/19. When it was launched, the innovation was its simplicity. Since then, we’ve had to go deeper. How could we continue to innovate, and build trust and confidence with people so they could take action on this sensitive and confronting issue?
This project is about shifting deeply ingrained human behaviour and fears through a supportive, engaging and layered approach. It recognises that making it easy to apply online for an assessment to see what services might be suitable for you is not enough.
We needed to build a supportive, trusted experience that patiently addresses a sequence of barriers and helps customers to get to the point where they are ready to take that step.
Project Commissioner
Department of Health and Aged Care
Project Creator
Project Brief
Since the new My Aged Care was launched, we've helped more people access aged care through carefully crafting an experience that helps Australians make sense of the aged care landscape, understand what supports are available, and connect people with the right services.
But we haven't stopped listening, learning, and improving.
Raising awareness through practical, easy-to-read information about how to access services and where to find providers wasn’t enough. Although the online application process was an immediate success, we knew that more was needed to get people to that point.
We needed to go beyond logical and informative to address the fears, concerns, and beliefs that were holding Australians back. Through 2020, COVID-19 and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety sharpened that focus. As trust declines, fears rise. How could the My Aged Care website help to address this?
There are thousands of aged care service providers, millions of Australians with individual needs, and a policy environment that’s actively responding to recommendations of the Royal Commission. Making the complex simple isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth putting in the work for.
Project Need
Through research and testing with customers, we unpacked the blockers that were stopping Australians’ tentative steps into aged care. This went beyond usability issues and into thought patterns and behaviour. We unpacked the key questions that needed answering with each step.
What do I need right now?
Older people are not looking for services; they're looking for help with a situation or circumstance. For example, someone who’s struggling to make their bed wants to know what might make it easier; they’re not thinking about “domestic assistance”. We designed a new Help explorer tool that lets users see how other people dealt with similar situations and what helped them.
Am I eligible?
The eligibility checker was already the first step of the Apply Online tool, but some people weren't ready to start that process. We created a standalone eligibility checker earlier in the process so it didn’t jar with their mental flow.
What does it cost?
To build trust and confidence, we redesigned the fee estimator to make it easier for people to understand what they might need to contribute and what government would pay. Granular design and testing ensured that every word was clear and the overall concepts were understood.
What’s involved?
With this question, the customer is not just seeking guidance on what they’ll need to do, but also assessing if it's worth the effort. We built a personalised guide to aged care with a clear process, answers at decision points, and a checklist that can be ticked off.
User Experience
How could we create a digital hand to hold, guide, and support older Australians to achieve what they needed? To walk beside them at a pace they were comfortable with? To listen and help them feel confident enough to make decisions and apply for services?
The approach needed to operate on the conscious and subconscious levels. It needed to support rational decision-making and emotional fears.
With the Help explorer tool, being able to provide insight into similar situations can provide users with reassurance and helps to normalise an experience, subtly addressing fears that stop action. It also carefully illustrates how to retain independence and autonomy.
The cost of aged care is one of the main areas where users have provided negative feedback over the past few years—largely because complex policies and different types of fees make it difficult to understand. It’s also underpinned by fears about personal finances during retirement.
The challenge with the fee estimator was ensuring that every word was clear and the overall concepts understood. Here we embarked on granular design and testing to build trust and confidence.
Before applying for services, the challenge for the personalised guide to aged care was being able to help not only with the process itself but with clearing the friction that could stop someone at this last step.
This kind of user experience might appear simple in execution, but its impact on real people and service providers alike is significant, demystifying and destigmatising aged care support.
Project Marketing
This project is about accelerating to a better future; one where older Australians can get the help they need to live independent, fulfilling lives. To achieve that, we needed to build trust and deliver through meticulous psychological service design.
That’s what this project has achieved. It’s taken a successful website and designed new, deeper levels of experience and connectivity that address each person in a holistic, supportive way.
We’ve created a human-centred experience tailored to users. We've designed and developed new tools made site enhancements, and supported numerous reform projects to deliver their objectives and improve customer outcomes.
Initial indications show this deeper approach is supporting more people to apply for services and start a proactive conversation about how to maintain their independence for longer.
The Trust in Australian public services annual report for 2022 showed My Aged Care was among the most trustworthy public services and agencies, with 78% of users saying they trusted the service. That was up eight percentage points from the pre-pandemic response.
Through innovative content and solution design, and various user experience improvements, My Aged Care continues to empower people to make informed decisions about care options.
Project Privacy
Liquid is committed to providing quality services and our privacy policy outlines our ongoing obligations in respect of how we manage personal information.
https://www.liquidinteractive.com.au/privacy
Digital - Government Services
The provision of timely government services has been transformed as applications and sites are developed and implemented to either replace or complement previous methods. Be it the delivery of current and up to date critical information, compliance, community support and engagement, notification and registration or providing greater accessibility to government resources.
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