THE GROW & GO TOOLBOX
The Toolbox has resources for everyone caring for young children, including parents and families, education, and health professionals. This project consolidated all open-access, trustworthy resources available in this space into one single website. The website contains thousands of resources from trustworthy sources on a range of topics, including breastfeeding, introducing solids, fussy eating, allergies, and healthy lunchboxes. It also includes a suite of new resources (both on paper and online) developed specifically to address the identified needs of website users.
​As the lead designer (and only) on this project, my responsibilities were diverse. From project branding to web design to social media management strategies, all creative outputs were under my management. Scroll down to see the aspects I was responsible for.
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This project, funded by the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care through a Public Health and Chronic Disease grant, was completed at the University of Queensland.
USER EXPERIENCE
This project was based on Co-Design methodologies to ensure that the user needs were addressed through the web and the resource design.
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Consumer panels, consisting of over 150 individuals with diverse backgrounds (including health professionals, parents, and early childhood educators), participated in three rounds of consumer workshops to inform different aspects of the project.
These aspects included:
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consumer needs​
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branding
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web design
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resource prototyping
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resource ideas
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issues with current health communication systems
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This was a very iterative process to capture and respond to the consumers' needs. Particular emphasis was placed on the website's accessibility and functionality. This led to the various 'homepages' for each key consumer group to make locating resources as simple as possible. The filtering system on the search page on the back and front end of development was also vital in ensuring consumer needs were met and extensive feedback and development processes were undertaken.
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Dynamic web design elements like scroll animations were purposely excluded from the design to ensure that the site was still functional in areas with limited or slower internet access.
RESOURCE DESIGN
Resources were designed in response to the scoping review and needs assessment.
When developing new content, the ethos was to ensure we weren't reinventing the wheel. If quality, reputable resources existed, the priority was to make that quality resource more accessible instead of creating a new version. This was namely to address a fundamental issue to the Australian health system of inconsistent health messaging,
All of the resources developed in this project aimed to fill existing gaps. This led to creating 20+ digital and paper-based resources, all freely available on the Grow & Go Website.
CULTURAL ADAPTATION
This project involved engaging with culturally and linguistically diverse communities across Australia, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Communities. This resulted in the development two home pages (one for linguistically diverse communities and one for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia).Resources were also developed for specific communities under the guidance of community leaders.
Displayed here is home page, artwork and resources created specifically Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities. This development was led by the project's Indigenous Advisory Group using co-design methods. The Advisory group consisted of several Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health professionals, Parents, Early Childhood Educators, and Health Academics.
One of the main challenges identified through the co-design process was adapting resources to suit the needs of each Aboriginal community around Australia.
As there are over 500 differing Indigenous cultural groups around Australia, creating resources that addressed the needs of each community was out of the project's scope. However, we still wanted to address this need, so we started brainstorming with the Advisory Group on ways to address this, and the concept of the Personalise-a-Resource tool was born.
In its currency, the tool is underdeveloped and requires more research, co-design sessions, and finessing to truly achieve its aims. Feedback has been incredibly positive overall, though we acknowledge that the templates are currently lacking. The PAR is currently powered by Canva, though future development calls for a more bespoke platform as we are limited by Canva's capabilities.
Cultural adaptation for this project also involved engaging with different cultural/language groups to develop tailored and translated resources.
Due to budgetary constraints, essential resources have been translated into Mandarin and Malay. Pending future funding, all resources will be translated and adapted to over 20 languages.
BRANDING
This project's branding was also developed using Co-Design. Consumer panel members provided ideas, feedback, and guidance and dictated the chosen final logo.
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The brand was challenging to create as it had to cater to several different audiences. The content had to appeal to children, parents, a wide range of health professionals, and the early childhood education sector. It also had to be incredibly legible, easily identifiable, and unique from the various other existing health groups and websites.
MOTION GRAPHICS
A suite of motion graphics (.MOGRT files) was also created as part of the brand package.
These can be seen in all of the project videos (one of note can be seen to the right) and in any videos shared on social media.
