Supporting Families to Make the Best Possible Early Education Decisions

Research shows quality early education and care leads to better health, education and employment outcomes later in life. 90% of a child’s brain develops by age 5, and their earliest environments and experiences are crucial to brain development and the foundation for learning. Finding the right education is of huge importance to families. The current landscape is filled with outdated information, in fragmented experiences, leaving them frustrated and unsure. Challenge: How can we provide an experience that provides a clear path to quality information and tools to help them find the best educational start for their child?

Over 22 weeks we redesigned and launched the new look StartingBlocks.gov.au – Australia’s free government website for families to find early childhood education services and learn about quality early learning. A key challenge was ensuring StartingBlocks.gov.au website continues growing to meet the unique and varied needs of children and their families. A simple intuitive search helps them make sense of options and confidently compare services. Simple calculators help parents understand their subsidy entitlements. Startingblocks.gov.au helps families make sense of the National Quality Standard (NQS), which sets high national benchmarks for children’s education and care services, by surfacing it throughout the experience.

For children — ultimately the aim is to support families to make the right choice for them so that their children can thrive as they take the first steps on their early education journey. For caregivers — helps them make the right choice for their child easily by providing reliable, free, complete and current information about quality educational options for their child. For ACECQA — this project demonstrated how design can result in smarter, more empathetic, more responsive user experiences. In particular by taking an inclusive research approach to ensure we are meeting the diverse needs of families across Australia.

At the heart of this was a process of co-creation with experts from ACECQA and over 15+ hours of customer testing. We took an inclusive approach to research, due to the diverse nature of people seeking early learning and care. We made sure to include all types of centres, ages of children, a mix of metro and regional, ATSI, EAL/D, and children with diverse needs. “Oh wow, it gives you all the information, you don’t need to go to the centre’s website or go hunting on Google.” – Testing participant “If I had known this resource existed, it would have saved me so much time. It took 12 hours to shortlist options the other day, this took an hour.” – Testing participant ”It has been inspiring to see how design research and user testing have ensured we cater to families from all walks of life. Moreover, by raising awareness of the NQS and promoting high-quality early education, this platform is helping to shape the future of ECE in Australia. It’s inspiring to see how design innovation can drive positive change at scale, and I do not doubt that StartingBlocks.gov.au will continue to make a lasting difference.” — Michelle Squire, ACECQA