We’re focused on making sure every project exceeds client expectations and have been proud recipients of a significant number of awards along the way.

Entering the Australian Web Awards is all about assuring our clients and potential clients that what we’re doing ‘underneath the hood’ is top of the game. We work in an industry where it’s challenging for anyone to pick a ‘good’ website from a ‘bad’ website on face value. It’s not easy for businesses to work out who to choose.

We’re proud to have been recognised in the Australian Web Awards since inception more than 10 years ago. This year, we’ve been nominated for Bikelinc (Not for Profit Category) and Marine WATERs (Government Category).

  • We’ve been working with Crime Stoppers WA for more than 6 years, and their main website was an Australian Web Award finalist in 2015.
  • We’ve worked with Department of Fisheries for a decade. The Marine WATERs website was an improved version of the website we initially launched in 2011. Here’s a link to our blog for this 1.0 launch.

About Marine WATERS

Marine WATERs is an educational resource and activity facilitation tool. Teachers, students and the wider Australian community will use the site therefore the user journey had to be simple, highly accessible and WCAG compliant.

The user interface (design)

As it is a Government product there were strict guidelines for the styling and layout.  Any new elements that did not pre-exist on other government websites had to be carefully considered and executed in keeping with the predefined UI. To create a marine theme within the government guidelines we treated background with videos, images and shapes, creating a unique identity and pleasurable experience.

The content dense sections are easily searchable/filterable with a full site search to help aid with discoverability of the content.

In the login area, teachers can save and share resource lists as well as run, manage, collate and download data for fieldwork activities. Because of the complexity of these systems in the backend it was important to keep the dashboard simple with obvious tabs to separate the sections.

The user experience (UX)

Research was undertaken to understand the different users for the website; educators (primary and high school), students and engaged community members.

The site functions as expected and is intuitive and easy to use – with a simple to use search at the core of its success.

Clean design and good content make it engaging and the content easy to digest without being oversimplified.

The key elements we feel makes this really easy to use are;

  • great search with the results page broken down by type (pages, resources, field work, blogs).
    sections broken down by the user types.
  • resource-specific search with relevant filters, that help to refine the results for each user type quickly and easily.
  • solid interface with good spacing.
  • icons for different resource types to make looking through results pages easier.
  • login area for custom experience where you can tailor your regular resources.
  • printable pages.

About Bikelinc

This project was planned from basic idea to completion with our long standing client, Crime Stoppers WA. We started the design in planning phase as follows;

  • Step 1: Defining the purpose of the project/product
  • Step 2: Defining and refine the personas
  • Step 3: Considering the user stories and prioritisation for each persona
  • Step 4: Developing a site structure to reflect the requirements
  • Step 5: Sketching and developing the UI/UX in sketch form
  • Step 6: Creating a brand identity and palette to fit the product
  • Step 7: Developing a scope of works to inform the UI
  • Step 8: Commencing IU design to fit all the needs above
  • Step 9: Building the website to meet the Scope of Works
  • Step 10: Launching the website!

The user interface (design)

It is a community service at no cost so it needed to have an approachable, professional and trustworthy design.

It also needed to explain this new concept to the audience quickly and easily – ensuring they understand they simply need to sign up to protect their bike.

The design uses a heavy and impactful headline font that is confident and grabs attention and pairs it with a body copy font is easy to read and personable. The brand has a shape that is used to both separate content areas and draw the eye to key information as the page scrolls.

One of the biggest challenges of the UI was to communicate what Bikelinc is efficiently and effectively. The decision was made to use illustration. The contents of the illustration was intentionally inclusive representation is inclusive to the diversity of the WA community.

The user experience (UX)

The website is created for; bike owners/potential owners, bike retailers, members of the WA community and WA Police officers.

We collated the user stories/needs and prioritised each against the personas above. From there, we were able to put together a site map that was clean, simple and easy to follow.

Bike owners and retailers needed to understand the offering and register their bike easily. It needed to be clear how to log in and when in, how to manage their bikes. There needed to be an easy to follow section for FAQs and useful information. They needed to know they also trust the product, which is where the ‘Crime Stoppers WA’ brand plays their key role.

All users, especially WA Police and the WA Community members needed to be able to easily look up a bike and see if it’s stolen and contact the owner. This was facilitated through the search without compromising the owners confidentiality for the public and via a secure dashboard for Police officers.

Since launch some months ago, there are now close to 10,000 bikes registered and there are plans to expand this nationally in the works.


For a full list of our Australian Web Awards nominations and winners, visit our awards page.