Firearm Safety
Making it easier to navigate complex obligations
Responsibilities
Service Design, Research, UX
Organisations
Firearms Safety Authority
Overview
Background
Following the Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019, the Firearms Safety Authority was stood up to help keep New Zealanders safe by improving firearms education, managing licence obligations and setting up a firearms registry.
Firearms are needed for pest control, farming and gathering food – so it's vital we have the systems in place to support people to own, use and sell firearms responsibly.
The organisation needed to design end-to-end services to help 228,000+ licence holders comply with complex obligations. Services spanned digital systems, internal knowledge bases, customer education, call centre processes, social media comms, website and physical guidance.
Role
A lead contract Service Designer, accountable for the overall service design approach – from research and service blueprinting through to UX design and service optimisation. I mentored a wider design team throughout.
Challenge
Turning complex regulations into accessible and efficient multi-channel services
Discovery
Understanding diverse needs
I played a key role in helping teams understand the needs of a wide range of user groups. Services that work for business owners who use technology daily would not work for a rural farmer who had to register his firearms for the first time.
Grounding decisions in nationwide research
To ensure decisions were grounded in an understanding of who we were designing for, I led nationwide research across New Zealand.
This included in-person and online sessions with licence holders, dealers and internal staff. I synthesised findings into clear discovery artefacts and presented insights to internal teams, senior leaders, ministers and licence holder community forums – ensuring research reached the people with the power to act on it.
Design
Turning complex regulations into seamless services
The regulations are complex and hard for licence holders to understand. I used service blueprinting to make the complex simple – turning obligations into a clear future state experience across multiple service touch-points including digital tools, call centres and physical guidance.
This work identified opportunities that informed leadership decisions, internal process improvements and design priorities for technology enhancements.
Addressing pain-points throughout the journey
Through reviewing analytics and conducting qualitative research, I identified, pitched for and actioned improvements that reduced overall permit application processing time.
Improving delivery efficiency and consistency
Making the most of Figma & low code software, I set up the design system and reusable page components, patterns and page templates.
To ensure the end product was easy to use and was trustworthy for end users, the design system aligned to the brand guidelines, WCAG accessibility standards and intuitive UX patterns.
Outcomes
228k+
people supported
Improvements to existing and new services helped make tasks easier to complete for 228,000+ licence holders, 400 firearms businesses and 400 internal staff.
600+
people engaged with
Research and testing was done across the country with external and internal users. It was presented to ministers, leaders and forums – directly informing programme decisions.
30%
reduction in processing time
Permit application processing efficiency improved due to identifying and addressing pain-points in services.