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About

AMES Australia provides English training, employment services, community engagement and settlement support to over 50,000 Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers each year.

Starting a brand new life in a foreign country is no easy task, and AMES wanted to simplify the process for their clients. Manual data entry, over-worked Case Managers, and out-dated internal systems were adding stress to an already difficult experience.

With a handful of problems to solve and plenty of opportunities to explore, myself and the team at Roam Digital spent 12 weeks researching, designing and building an Android App to achieve an ambitious goal - Create a connected experience for Refugees and Migrants, from the time they arrive until they have found full-time employment.

My Role

As the design lead on the project, I worked closely with a Junior Designer, Product Manager and Technical Lead throughout the process.

Responsibilities included; conducting empathy interviews, contextual enquiries and site visits, workshop facilitation, building early user flows, sketching wireframes, creating high-fidelity designs and usability testing with customers.

MyAMESx went live on the Play Store during the second half of 2019.

Getting Started

To kick things off, we started with a 5 day Sprint. Not only did this allow us to get great insight into the challenges AMES was facing, but we also heard stories first-hand from Refugees and Asylum Seekers that had been through the settlement process.

Key patterns had started to emerge, the first of which was the level of attention that clients required. Case Managers were the one point of contact that had to do everything from organise welfare payments, to translate utility bills. This bottleneck was the cause of much frustration, especially for those without a support network or any family ties in Australia.

Amongst other features, we created Amy, a very basic assistant that could be accessed through existing platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Although rudimentary in nature, the feature gave Clients the ability to perform basic actions and find answers to basic questions. This provided them with much needed independence, and reduced the workload for the Case Managers they were assigned.

Discovery

Due to the short nature of Design Sprints, we were only able to focus on one specific part of the customer journey. However, when moving into discovery, the wider settlement experience came into view. Sites visits to the various AMES locations spread across Melbourne provided us with a tangible idea of what the settlement process looked like.

We met with Case Managers, took English classes, spoke with Teachers, Orientation Guides and Job brokers - all of which left us with more questions than answers...

We weren't the only ones experiencing this phenomenon. We found that Clients were regularly transferred between departments within AMES as they progressed throughout the settlement journey. Each transfer brought with it new questions, and new challenges.

The solution

To put some of these concerns at ease, we tested bite-sized quizzes with clients and found the response to be extremely positive. It was now possible for clients to find the answers to common questions without relying so heavily upon the Case Manager to provide them.

At this point, our early assistant Amy was ditched in favour of a structured self-paced learning approach. Core modules containing common questions and answers were created for every stage of the settlement journey. Although this method of delivery differed from our original idea, it still essentially delivered the same thing - independence.

Audio & Video Support

In terms of format, each of these modules consisted of two key parts. An article about a specific subject (e.g. Housing & Tenancy, Employment, Australian Law, Transport, Education etc) and a short quiz allowing clients to test whether they have understood the content.

Accessibility was a key factor to address during this project, and it extended beyond naming buttons correctly and ensuring colours had the right level of contrast. Audio and video support were added for each article too, meaning that young children and people learning to read and write could still engage with the platform.

Outcome

Simplifying the settlement journey for Asylum Seekers and Refugees adjusting to life in Australia is no easy task, and building an Android App certainly isn't a silver bullet. Although the platform has lightened the load for Case Managers, this is only the first step. There is still plenty of work to do and additional opportunities to explore.

In terms of early wins, what this project has done is plant a stake in the ground. AMES is currently undergoing a much larger digital transformation and from all reports, this platform has been a fantastic way of showing their clients, shareholders and employees an exciting glimpse of what's to come.