Simplifying complexity: A user-centred redesign for NSW Land Registry Services
As the lead UX designer, I spearheaded the end-to-end redesign of a complex website for one of New South Wales oldest public services. My role was to define the project's direction, lead the research and design efforts, and deliver an experience that met the needs of both public and professional users.
Team
I led a design team of two (myself and another UX designer), collaborating with a project consultant.
Timeline
7 weeks (research & design phase)
Tools
Figma, Miro, Optimal Workshop, Gemini, NotebookLM
A victim of its own history
For over 160 years, NSW Land Registry Services (LRS) has been the single source of truth for land titles in the state. However, its website had become a victim of its history, a sprawling collection of outdated content, duplicate pages, and confusing layouts built on a legacy system that was difficult to manage.
This created significant daily friction for its primary users: surveyors, conveyancers, and legal professionals who rely on the site for their work. The navigation was a maze, and the search function was so ineffective that many resorted to using Google just to find the right page on the LRS website, a clear sign of a broken user experience.
This frustration wasn't just a user issue; it had a direct business impact. The lack of findable information and self-service options resulted in a high volume of calls to the customer support team, creating inefficiencies and driving up costs. While a company-wide rebrand was the catalyst for change, the core mission was clear: to create an intuitive, self-sufficient digital experience for all users.
THE CHALLENGE
From ambiguity to a clear mission
The project began with a clear business driver, a company-wide rebrand. However, the definition of "success" from a user experience perspective was yet to be established. The existing website had no analytics or user satisfaction metrics (like a CSAT score) to benchmark against. This meant we were navigating without a map.
The core challenge, therefore, was twofold: first, to define what a "better" experience meant directly from users, and second, to translate those needs into a clear, actionable design strategy.
Based on our initial workshops and stakeholder interviews, we defined the challenge with these key goals:
The user problem
Professionals and the public couldn't find the information they needed easily. The site's poor navigation and ineffective search created daily friction, forcing them to rely on workarounds or call support.
The business problem
A high volume of preventable support calls was creating operational inefficiency. The lack of a clear information architecture also made the website difficult and costly to manage and update.
Our goals
Clarify the information architecture: Design an intuitive navigation system that helps users find what they need without having to think.
Enable self-service: Provide clear, findable answers to common queries to empower users and reduce their reliance on the support team.
Establish a baseline: Implement a design that could be measured and improved over time, setting the foundation for future analytics and user feedback.
MY ROLE & CONTRIBUTIONS
Leading the charge from discovery to design
As the lead designer, I was responsible for the project's direction from the initial scoping through to the final design, ensuring our approach was aligned with both user needs and client constraints.
My key contributions included:
Defining the project roadmap: I worked closely with the client to scope the project, establishing achievable goals, activities, and deadlines within the 7-week timeline.
Leading user research: I planned and led all discovery workshops with users and stakeholders. I also personally owned the definition of the new information architecture, which involved scoping, facilitating, and synthesising a comprehensive tree testing study.
Guiding the design process: While I collaborated on wireframing and high-fidelity mockups with the supporting designer, I led all user and stakeholder feedback sessions to ensure our design decisions were continuously validated.
Overseeing project governance: Throughout the project, I was a key contributor to project governance, working alongside the project manager to manage ongoing risks and capture requirements.
THE PROCESS
The journey from 'why' to 'how'
Our 7-week process was a focused journey from uncovering deep user frustrations to delivering a validated, intuitive solution. We structured our work into three key phases.
Uncovering the core frustration
We began with collaborative workshops focused on industry professionals. The sessions quickly validated our assumptions about poor navigation, but they also revealed a critical insight: users were so frustrated with the site that they relied on Google and even ChatGPT to find information. This became the clearest evidence of the need for change.
Building a better navigation
With the core problem clear, we moved to validate the client's proposed information architecture. A tree testing study with both professionals and the public yielded a surprising result: the general public had a higher task success rate than the experts. This insight was crucial, allowing us to refine the structure to create a single, evidence-based navigation that catered for both novice and expert users.
From insight to interface
Moving into Figma, I established a design system to ensure consistency before we began creating high-fidelity designs. Our research directly shaped the interface. For example, to solve the poor 'findability', we completely overhauled the search function, adding an audience filter ('Individual' vs. 'Professional') to deliver tailored results and directly address the distinct user needs we had identified.
THE SOLUTION
The new digital front door for NSW LRS
The final design is a clean, modern, and user-centred experience that directly addresses the core issues of poor findability and a lack of self-service. The interface was designed to be clear and accessible, aligning with the new brand while prioritising ease of use.
Below are a few key features that highlight how we turned our research insights into tangible solutions.
Proactive help with popular topics
On the new homepage, directly below the main banner, we introduced a ‘Popular topics’ section. Our analysis of customer support queries revealed that a small number of topics were responsible for a large volume of calls. By surfacing these popular pages directly on the homepage, we provide users with proactive answers to their most common questions, enabling self-service from the moment they arrive.
An intuitive and powerful search
We completely redesigned the search experience. The most critical improvement was the addition of the ‘Individual’ and ‘Professional’ audience filters. This directly solved the problem of different user groups needing different information from the same query, allowing each user to get to a relevant answer much faster and with greater confidence.
Effortless navigation on long pages
For content-heavy pages, which are common on the site, we designed and implemented a sticky in-page navigation menu. This allows users to see an overview of the page content at a glance and jump directly to the section that is most relevant to them. It’s a simple solution that significantly reduces scrolling and frustration, improving findability at a granular level.
THE IMPACT
A clear path forward
As the new website has only recently launched, quantitative data is not yet available. However, the initial reception from both internal stakeholders and industry professionals has been overwhelmingly positive, with specific praise for the clean, modern design and the vastly improved navigation.
Crucially, this project has provided the foundation for future measurement. For the first time, the business will be implementing analytics tools to track user behaviour and establish clear benchmarks. This, combined with continued engagement with professionals through existing feedback channels, will allow us to measure the full impact of the redesign and make data-informed decisions going forward.
LEARNINGS & REFLECTIONS
Key lessons and future opportunities
This project provided several valuable learning experiences and exciting opportunities for the future.
The importance of ruthless prioritisation. Delivering a full research and design process in just seven weeks reinforced the importance of defining a tight scope. Prioritising the most critical activities and managing stakeholder expectations were fundamental to the project's success.
Proactive recruitment is key. While the tree testing was successful, I learnt that I would be even more proactive in securing research participants early in the process. This experience highlighted the challenge of working with client-dependent communication channels and the need to plan for potential delays.
Future opportunity: from static to dynamic content. A clear next step is to enhance the new ‘Popular topics’ section. Instead of being manually managed, it could be linked to analytics to dynamically display the most frequented pages. We could even add the same ‘Individual’ and ‘Professional’ filters to provide an even more tailored experience for each audience.
