The NSW Point to Point Transport Commissioner makes safety their mission. By educating transport service providers like taxi and ride-share companies, they ensure that thousands of passengers reach their destination safely each year.

In 2023, reforms to taxi licensing laws transformed the industry by lowering barriers to entry for new taxi operators. But new operators were hampered by the complex web of safety regulations, originally created for industry insiders.

The Commission recognised this challenge and wanted to better support new operators by improving the user experience of their website. In order to achieve that, they needed to deeply understand the target audience needs, behaviours and jobs to be done.

Pollen partnered closely with the Commission to conduct research with the key audience groups who visit the website.

We evaluated two key experiences, those of new operators who were just entering the industry and those of existing operators who were educating their drivers about safety. To capture as many perspectives as possible, we made it easier for participants to take part by holding workshops both online and in person in multiple locations across the state.

We also conducted usability testing with over 35 new and current industry stakeholders to evaluate how well the current website was meeting their needs.

Our research report set out our findings across user behaviours, delights (moments of success) and pain points (challenges and barriers).

What we found was that:

• the Point to Point website has a wealth of high quality content, but it’s difficult to find, especially for new operators who don’t yet understand the industry
• website visitors, particularly drivers, are incredibly diverse and have a wide range of digital literacy levels - some very low
• new operators face a very steep learning curve, including having to learn new terminology

We provided actionable recommendations, categorised by level of positive impact for target audiences, for content, UI design, information architecture and user journeys. We then created a prioritisation matrix of our recommendations so that Point to Point could prepare their roadmap.

Armed with the insights and recommendations we provided, Point to Point is now able to make evidence-based decisions for improvement.

Bringing new businesses into an industry is a challenge, especially so when the safety requirements are complex and critical. No matter how complex a service or process can be, it's possible to provide a clear, simple and useful user experience when you have a comprehensive understanding of your diverse, hard-to-reach users. By doing so, your digital presence can become indispensable and play a valuable, effective role in providing customer service and other support.

If you have an audience you’d like to learn more about so that you can more effectively reach and engage them, get in touch with Pollen’s Research team for a chat. Send us your details using the form below or email us at [email protected]- we’d love to chat with you!