MyVictoria

In an increasingly insights-led world, data is power. Unfortunately, that power is often inaccessible to small businesses and citizens, giving an unfair advantage to big business. To boost small and medium businesses economic activity, the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) engaged Today in partnership with Geoplex to develop a tool that makes it easy for small businesses to explore, understand and act on open government data.

We created a beautiful data platform that helps small businesses understand their world. The product is unique, going beyond typical web design into something closer to software product development. It was built with cutting-edge web and geospatial technology, with a kit of reusable components to add value to future data projects. The tool brings together over 60 diverse datasets, using a modular chart and map components to simplify and bring consistency to the data.

MyVictoria launched in September 2018. It’s expected to contribute millions to the Victorian economy. It’s a pioneering project for government open data in Australia—it’s the first time it’s been done to this scale, with this many data sets, in a truly human-centred way. The innovative UI and data visualization patterns will live on beyond My Victoria, as they will start to be embedded across Victorian government websites, creating a clear and consistent design language for citizens.

We had access to over 60 open data sets from across government, with information ranging from demographics, to business, to government projects. Our task was to bring this into a cohesive story. To do this, we worked with DPC and Geoplex in a transdisciplinary team, sharing a workspace and collaboratively managing everything from converting data to APIs to concept generation and testing. We began by reviewing the landscape, and then running co-design we sessions with the end users of the platform—small businesses, and people invested in their success—where we tested a broad range of concepts through low fidelity paper prototypes. The product is unique, going beyond typical web design into something closer to software product development. It functions intuitively, using familiar design languages in an entirely new context. It’s built with cutting-edge web and geospatial technology, with a kit of reusable components to add value to future data projects.