Superficial app made for stakeholders, not immigrants.
The app represents how Australian bureaucrats see life on paper. In their version of the "journey," everything is fine, and there are no people who can't find rent or a job. While in real life almost every single person encounters some exception to rules and expected process.
It appears developers haven't done user research or talked to any immigrants. Otherwise, the information would be more detailed and reflective of real life in Australia and problems immigrants are facing in their journey.
What would actually be helpful is to provide guidance for real scenarios. For example, how to navigate a situation where finding a rental is difficult because you have a child or pet, and your chances of finding rent are slim unless you make an offer above the asking price.
Surprisingly, for a settlement information app, it assumes that immigrants already know a lot about living in Australia. It drops user in without any reference what is important or relevant to them. What is needed is an “orientation” screen to tie everything together in a meaningful way and give user a direction.
The Journey checklist, with only sparingly added articles, is not very helpful. It needs to be an actual guide, with instructions for every step, guiding you through all the unmissable steps such as obtaining a TFN and a Medicare card. It should also provide explanations as to why you need to take particular steps and in what order, especially if some steps are blocking others. In the checklist, some important items are just underlined text links. These should instead be call-to-action buttons with clear labels indicating what they are. For example, "Choose a bank that suits you" should be "Choose a bank" with a button next to it that says "Read more about Australian banks".
There’s a lot of callous language which speaks bureaucracy. For example opening a bank account is hidden behind “Organise your finances”.
The cartoon images are supposed to reflect diversity, but too much colour makes it overbearing and difficult to navigate the app. The image cards should have clear visual hierarchy, backgrounds muted, labels easily readable and not competing with other visual elements.
The sign-up screen is a completely unnecessary barrier to entry. Why can't users see publicly available content without providing their full name and email? There's no social sign-in, and the implementation is either amateur or ignorant: text inputs are missing basic TextContentType and it doesn't support password auto-fill, password managers.
The creators of app spending a year adding translations to other languages but didn't fix the sign up form which is the most immediate issue. This suggest that the app wasn’t user-tested after the release.
It appears developers haven't done user research or talked to any immigrants. Otherwise, the information would be more detailed and reflective of real life in Australia and problems immigrants are facing in their journey.
What would actually be helpful is to provide guidance for real scenarios. For example, how to navigate a situation where finding a rental is difficult because you have a child or pet, and your chances of finding rent are slim unless you make an offer above the asking price.
Surprisingly, for a settlement information app, it assumes that immigrants already know a lot about living in Australia. It drops user in without any reference what is important or relevant to them. What is needed is an “orientation” screen to tie everything together in a meaningful way and give user a direction.
The Journey checklist, with only sparingly added articles, is not very helpful. It needs to be an actual guide, with instructions for every step, guiding you through all the unmissable steps such as obtaining a TFN and a Medicare card. It should also provide explanations as to why you need to take particular steps and in what order, especially if some steps are blocking others. In the checklist, some important items are just underlined text links. These should instead be call-to-action buttons with clear labels indicating what they are. For example, "Choose a bank that suits you" should be "Choose a bank" with a button next to it that says "Read more about Australian banks".
There’s a lot of callous language which speaks bureaucracy. For example opening a bank account is hidden behind “Organise your finances”.
The cartoon images are supposed to reflect diversity, but too much colour makes it overbearing and difficult to navigate the app. The image cards should have clear visual hierarchy, backgrounds muted, labels easily readable and not competing with other visual elements.
The sign-up screen is a completely unnecessary barrier to entry. Why can't users see publicly available content without providing their full name and email? There's no social sign-in, and the implementation is either amateur or ignorant: text inputs are missing basic TextContentType and it doesn't support password auto-fill, password managers.
The creators of app spending a year adding translations to other languages but didn't fix the sign up form which is the most immediate issue. This suggest that the app wasn’t user-tested after the release.
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